Living here means driving very far to get anywhere - back home even when I lived in the country I was 10-15 minutes from major shopping. Here - not so much. There are only three small towns, one mid-sized town and one large town close enough (less than one hour of driving) that have stores, gas stations, etc. The nearest small town to our place is Rector (pop. 1790)- they have a small grocery store with fuel, a Dollar General, a Sonic, a bank, a funeral home, a doctor's office and two gas stations one of which boasts a Subway. The town of Marmaduke (pop. 1174) is just down the road from Rector and they have a gas station, a Subway, a bank and a post office. Each of these towns have a great school system as well, small as they are. Corning is a bit bigger and it has everything I listed for Rector and Marmaduke plus a McDonalds and a WalMart (a very small one). To get to a mall or a retail store other than WalMart requires an hour long trip to Jonesboro.
The best part about these small towns besides the breathtaking scenery, the fresh air and the friendliest people I have ever met is the sense of community manifested in the community centers. Every town I have been through in this great state I now call home has a community center - something unheard of in Ohio where I was born and raised. They offer a space for folks in the community to gather for everything from potluck dinners to Karate classes. I go to the community center in nearby Paragould 3-5 days a week to swim - yes, swim! They have a huge pool with several lanes for those who comes to exercise (and the local school swimteam practice) and also offer water aerobics classes. This impressively large facility also has a therapy pool which is nice and hot for those rehabilitating or trying to ease arthritis pain, etc. There is a gym with a large indoor track, basketball court and fitness equipment plus outside soccer fields and another track plus a nice outdoor swimming pool with slides (pics above).
We even have a community center here in Knob which doesn't qualify as a town. In fact all Knob does have is the community center (pic at the bottom of this blog). That's all we need...
Wow, I just happened across your blog today. I really enjoyed this entry. It is a great reminder of how I felt when I moved to the area three years ago. I too love the people and the scenery. It sounds like you had it pretty tough during the ice storm as well. We were without power for 18 days. Long enough! We have four kids. We had to move everyone into our master bedroom to use the one propane heater we had. Boy am I glad that's all a memory now!
ReplyDeleteThe kids and I really enjoy that water park in Paragould in the summer time. I would love to be a regular indoors year round, but haven't.
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