I suppose I like small because that is the environment in which I was raised. Everything was smaller in my growing up years. Houses were built just big enough to house a family. Not many mansions adorned the countryside around our farm. If a couple had a big house, they usually had a big family as well. Many homes of the '50s would fit inside the new homes of today.

As my wife and I have traveled the country through our married years, we've sought out small places to visit. If there is a small town off the beaten track, we've usually found a way to it. We've rarely been disappointed by these small places. Real people are sitting on the stools at the local cafes. Kids are riding their bicycles down the middle of the streets. During one such visit, we even became a part of a funeral procession, even though we were no kin to the deceased. We were right in the middle of a line of pick-ups with Kentucky coon hounds poking their heads out of the back windows. Luckily, the dearly departed was evidently loved because the cemetery he or she was headed for was just outside the city limits. I had visions of driving ten miles-an-hour for fifty miles. Not to worry.

I like hunting pheasants in small fields. Small fields that have lots of corners with lots of weeds. Places where one can plot a strategy to way-lay an unsuspecting rooster as it tries to sneak away without being seen. Some fields today resemble the Sahara with no landmarks as far as the eye can see. The fields I seek have corner posts and rows of trees somewhere on the property and maybe a crooked creek flowing through. These are small fields that have been farmed over the years with small machinery, even though now giant tractors are turning over the earth.

For the most part, the small country stores of my youth are but a memory. We had two of them within a couple of miles from our farmhouse. One was called the Station and the other was called Neptune. Neptune had been kind of a swinging place during my grandfather's days. It had been nicknamed Happy Corners. You figure out why they called it that. But, it had shrunk to just one store during its final years. Herb and Clara Greenwalt owned the Neptune store. You could buy almost anything there. Shotgun shells, sliced meat, hog feed, farm boots, nails, canned chili, pop, fertilizer and lots more stuff. Herb let me catch night crawlers out behind his house after dark. If you forgot your billfold and couldn't pay for your purchase, no matter, he or Clara would write it down on a piece of paper and you could pay for it next time you were in the store.

Some might sneer at my "small" attitude. Bigger is better, they might tell me. Well, in some instances I would have to agree, but there is goodness in small too. There is real value in knowing your neighbors, your barber, your dentist, your veterinarian, maybe even your undertaker.

I write for some small town papers. I get lots of comments from readers from those small towns. In today's world of huge publishing companies, I'm hoping theses small town papers can find a way to keep publishing. It's not an easy task when balance sheets are part of the equation. Not everyone wants or needs to read only world or national news. Small is more important than some might think.

Small can be good. Neptune is gone now and I'm not happy about it.

See you next time. Okay?