"Place" as a Character

In the days when my children were still young enough to take road trips with us, we explored the wide expanses of the Upper Midwest terrain often. We, of course, always had a destination in mind--it was a vacation, after all--maybe Yellowstone one year or the Black Hills of South Dakota or Duluth, Minnesota. But our (okay, my) preference was to steer clear of interstate highways and instead travel the back roads. I'm a sucker for weathered locales, and I'd find myself wondering why people still chose to remain in those places that were clearly dying, economically. I knew why, of course. One can always commute to the city or at least to a bigger town for work, although in winter that might well be a treacherous undertaking, but small towns are just special.

I never lived in a heavily populated area until I moved to one a quarter century ago. It's not that I resided in a one-stoplight hamlet with one dilapidated convenience store, but I knew the streets of my town, how to get around without encountering a daily dose of road rage and strangers who never make eye contact. When malls were still the place to shop, I'd never fail to run into someone I knew, either an old schoolmate or a distant in-law or a former work buddy. There was a certain comfort in knowing people, and even if I didn't know them, when push came to shove, they stood at the ready to help me out, such as the time I drove my car into a ditch in a futile attempt to get to work during a snowstorm, I hiked to the nearest home that had a light shining in its window, and the owner not only ushered me inside, but offered me coffee as the snow melting off my boots formed little puddles on his nice linoleum. (This was before cell phones.)

Small towns, much smaller than mine, have a character all their own. They're hefty, confident. They're not going to be pushed around, but they will sit you down at their kitchen table--you, a complete stranger--and offer you a homemade caramel roll. Small towns also have manners. They're not nosy. Scratch that. They're just as nosy as every other town, but they keep it well hidden, except during gossip sessions across a shared fence, as they're complaining about the rabbits gobbling up their garden lettuce. 

There's a common myth that small town people are suspicious of strangers. They aren't. They're just curious. Why'd this guy choose this place to stop? Is he having car trouble? I'd better call Bill to come over and help him out. Well, if his engine's okay, he's probably lost. Wonder where he's from and why he took the county road to get to where he's going. The highway's a lot faster. 

If you happen to move to a small town, unless you're the gregarious sort, but not overly gregarious, the residents will first examine you from a distance. "Did you see that someone moved into the Larson house?" "Ooh, what do they look like?" (Meaning, they aren't weird, are they?) Soon you'll get a friendly wave or two as you take a stroll around the block. You'll stop to admire someone's bed of purple Dutch crocus and the woman wielding her hand trowel will rise up, brush the soil off her hands and start up a conversation about perennials, which you know nothing about, but pretend you do to keep this new chat going. The first time you stop into the town's hardware store, you'll get some sidelong glances and the clerk ringing up your ten-pack of cabinet pulls and your Phillips screwdriver will be formally courteous, until your third run to the store, when he starts asking about your home projects. The checkout woman at the tiny grocery store might not even greet you as she starts scanning your bag of oranges and half gallon of milk, but next time she'll greet you with a knowing, "Hi!" 

But it's not just the people who form a small town's character. It's the oldness, the still-breathing history. An eighty-year-old farmhouse that was once situated out in the countryside, but now, thanks to progress encroaching on it, is perched just on the edge of the village. It's been updated a bit, and there's a four-wheeler parked off to the side and one of those metal whirly gig lawn decorations planted on the front lawn, but the house's bones are still there to remind everyone of what used to be. 

After a long day on the road, our family might stop into a small cafe that looked inviting, with its cedar shakes and a sign hanging on the side of the building that read, "Alma's". Outside the sun was hot and it baked our skin as we tumbled out of the car, but the cool darkness inside Alma's was just the balm we were craving. We strolled past the slow-revolving pie case with lemon meringue peeking out at us, tart and juicy, slid into a booth and ordered up a hot turkey sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy, suddenly shivering for a hot meal. It was two p.m. and we had the place to ourselves, except for (probably) Alma, who did double duty as our hostess and server. Heavy clear salt and pepper shakers with metal tops nestled on each side of an aluminum napkin dispenser, next to an amber glass ashtray--apparently, the county health police weren't trolling for tobacco violations--yet. Alma was efficiently businesslike when taking our orders, not rude, yet not yee-hawing at the sudden appearance of interlopers. Aside from the regular breakfast crowd, ours was likely her biggest profit of the day. 

Once, in the South Dakota wilderness, we came upon an old (read: broken-down) silver or gold mine. It was impossible to know which, and we (I) had to stop and explore it. There it sat, abandoned, somewhere along where the highway carved a ribbon through the hills. It turned out the mine wasn't much to see, its crunching grey timbers dangling akimbo, yet I was thrilled to discover something old; ancient, really, smack in the middle of nowhere. I've never once found an abandoned anything in the city.

Do people give a place its character or does place make them the people they are? I think it's symbiotic mostly, but a place seeps into people's bones, molds them in ways even they don't recognize. 

I like "places". They talk to you if you listen closely enough. So, yes, whichever place I choose for my stories, it deserves a supporting credit, just as much as the people who live there.

 

© 2025 April Tompkins