City Life vs Country Life

 

Eugene was the biggest city I ever lived in from 1991 to 2000.  My house was a block off Willamette Street, the main street running north and south through the city.    The noise of the traffic was constant, but one gets used to it with time.   Everything I needed was within walking distance, including a market, bakery, a few restaurants, taverns, banks, even my dentists.  Neighbors were an assortment of different types of folks.   John and Lori across the street became good friends.    Other neighbors ranged from social misfits to renters that would come and go.    Crime was an issue.  I had a bike stolen, somebody at night broke through my back gate and there was the fear of someone knocking on the front door at odd hours of the day.   There were people asking for handouts, sales people, and activists wanting to change the world.   Some people that stood out included a woman selling a cleaning solution.  She came in the house and cleaned my stove with it to show me how good it was.   After that I did buy a bottle of it.  There were university students selling a vacuum cleaner and demonstrated how good it was on my dirty rug.   Did not buy it since it was too expensive and that was the only rug I had in the house.  One of the most interesting encounters was with a man in a wheelchair that saw me working outside and asked if I had any old carpet pieces.   After telling him I had some in the garage he got up out of the wheelchair to take a look.

 

Where we live in the country now is the most isolated place we have ever lived.   It is very quiet, except for the distant sound of the train whistle in the valley or the sound of traffic on I-5 six miles away when weather conditions are right.  

Most of our neighbors are friendly and we help each other out whenever necessary.   Sharing the expense of road maintenance has been a problem causing conflict with some neighbors.   There is the fear of being burned out from wildfire in the summer and the fear of a big snow storm in the winter causing power outages and the challenge of keeping the road open down to the highway.   So far we have not had a crime problem, but have been suspicious of strangers driving up our road.   A few of our neighbors have enough weapons to fight a war and heaven help those that might have bad intentions of doing harm to them.   Most of all we don't miss the city traffic.    We never see any sales people, but sure would not mind seeing the woman with the cleaning solution again, and let her demonstrate how well it works on our stove.