210605 The Sentinel, Our Small Town

We ended up here purely by chance. We had sold the farm and closing on the deal was rapidly approaching. Every day we would search for a suitable place to live and were finding nothing we liked. There were only 6 days left and there was nothing in sight. This town seemed like a good place to live, but after looking all over there was nothing available. There we sat on the edge of a Pizza Hut parking lot and Joyce was discouraged beyond what she could handle. I was not far behind in that department.

I sat there racking my brain for an answer, any answer! And then the light bulb in my brain began to glow, dimly at first. I started the car and told Joyce that I remembered there were some apartments I had seen 3 years prior while test driving a car in our town. We were fairly close to there so I drove over to see what was possible. The first place we wanted to try only had the rental office open 3 days a week and it was not one of those days. The next stop was just beyond; we walked into the office, looked at an apartment and signed a lease, problem solved.

There’s an old saying by a Scotsman, Robert Burns that sums up my tale for today. It goes like this: “The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men Often go Awry.” That to me sums up life in one short sentence. Our grand plan certainly fell apart. The beauty of it is we landed in a place where people are friendly, courteous and upbeat. We have enjoyed being here for 5 years now. The town is growing and except for an occasional excursion, we have everything we need close at hand.

One final note that I am learning is this: don’t give up hope if something doesn’t seem to work out for you when you wanted, it might mean that something better is just around the corner.