Like a huge metropolitan city, worldwide of renown and redolent of history, famous in literature and teeming with a varied population, Langlois is a place where one might feel hidden from the world. Secluded. Reclusive.
It is however a smallish village at best. Not really a town at all. It lacks politicians, if not politics. It supports only a skeleton of commerce. And despite my conviction to the contrary, I discovered upon moving here that a small town is not necessarily a place to become a hermit. You are noticed. You are wondered about.
I was certain I had found my cave, a home outside of the few buildings that make up Langlois town-center and down a one-lane dirt road. But even an aspiring hermit needs a book now and then. Orders something delivered by those big brown trucks. Receives mail that must be fetched at the post office or needs a quart of milk without traveling 13 miles to a bigger village.
At the library you are soon known by name as well as by book preferences. The postmistress chats. The delivery guy pauses for a hello and to ask where you prefer the brown truck be turned around. The little market has milk but also great hot dogs and you can’t resist returning another day to get one for lunch. People smile. They wave. They greet you. Friendliness tends to ooze from the ground and squish around your toes like the ubiquitous winter mud.
Langlois is the sort of place where you can be embraced. It isn’t set on the ocean, and thus scenic, though if you look to the east it has a sweet and graceful mountain all its own. Tourists tend to drive through and barely notice it. But those who slow down, who pause and spend an hour, will be rewarded with a slice of small town ambiance I’ve learned to value. Villages like ours should be world famous.
-Martha Schram (10/14)
Comment: Christy Lynn: Nice! Beautifully written. Makes me wanna move there - oh wait, I AM there
View from Martha's hermitage
