Reasons Why Small Town Life is Better than City Living in Idaho

I remember meeting a woman from Seattle who told me Boise was a very nice small town.  We were both taking pictures of the Lincoln statue near the state museum.  She commented that she and her husband had lived in Washington, D.C., too, and that they were refreshingly quiet.

It’s all a matter of perspective, right?

I grew up in a town with two traffic lights.  One played an important role near a factory, which closed 30 years ago.  There’s little traffic on the street anymore, and the town could probably get by with one light.

When my dad died, my brother came home for a week for the funeral.  He had been living in Los Angeles, Fort Worth, and Orlando.  He was used to helicopters with search lights flying overhead most nights, and suddenly found the sound of crickets kept him from sleeping.

My recollection of summer nights as a kid was of cool breezes blowing through open windows and the occasional sound of neighborhood cats harguing

I’ve called Twin Falls home for a decade.  It’s somewhere in the middle of big cities and small towns.  I do believe I’m now hearing far more sirens at all times of day, and I’m on the life flight route for the hospital.  Two notorious killers were arrested a block away last year after a long manhunt and high-speed chase.

I gave all of this some thought over the weekend as I visited Fairfield.  I was on a road near Soldier Mountain, and a man out for a morning walk on the road gave me a big smile and a wave.  The road isn’t very busy, and is probably safer than most sidewalks in a city.

A friend at my local sheriff’s office has been reminding me that it would be a beautiful place to live, but in the event of a heart attack or stroke, my odds of survival are much higher because I live a few blocks from a regional medical center.

But weighed against peace of mind, I think I’ll take a small town.

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