Carlton, Minnesota - My Small Hometown

I am a social studies teacher in a small, western Wisconsin town. Ironically, at the same time, I live in a Twin Cities suburb. Every year in my Geography classrooms during discussions of population change, I state the fact that most of the students will be living and working in a metropolitan area during adulthood. Every mention of this inevitable truth is met with the same looks of disbelief, shakes of the head and cries of "not me". In the past I smugly told them - like it or not - that their futures would take them away from their small hometown of Osceola, Wisconsin. "You can always come home and visit," I would say, echoing my own attitude. "Your town will still be here, unchanged."

If only that were true.

My hometown is Carlton, Minnesota. Carlton - located twenty miles south of Duluth - has a population somewhere around 1,000 people (I stopped trusting the city limits sign decades ago). Carlton is like many other small towns across the United States - largely bereft of economic development (despite an eager and capable labor force), typically ignored by its state government (with infrastructure tax dollars going elsewhere) and possessed of a crumbling Main Street that has been hijacked by the Wal-Marts, Home Depots and McDonald's of the world.

Rural America is taken for granted, and not only by Big Business. But also by those who left her.

We take for granted that our small hometowns won't change. In fact, we don't want them to. We don't want our hometowns to change because we count on them to be our connection to a simpler, less complicated time in our lives. We want to be able to pull off Interstate 35 and know an Oasis omelette is just a left turn away. We want to see the old water tower in the distance (not the new, more efficient replacement), growing larger as we approach the town limits. We want to be able to come over the last hill and drive by the Cozy Cafe. We want to walk into the Third Base Bar and exchange smiles and hellos with people we've known our entire lives.

We want all of these things every time we come home.

I love my hometown. It's like a family member. Even more in some ways, because Carlton will always be there. But I didn't know how much I took it for granted until this past week when Carlton, the Duluth area and many other small towns in the Northland were deeply scarred. Floodwaters from torrential rainfall buckled roads, tore bridges from their moorings and caused widespread property damage throughout southern St. Louis and Carlton Counties.

But I'm not there. And because I'm not there I know the damage is probably more than I can truly comprehend. Landmarks are gone, bridges are in desperate need of repair and vital roads have been washed away. But, ultimately - with focus and effort - those things will be replaced. They always are.

The people of Carlton and other communities in the area affected by the flooding will do what countless people across countless small towns always do. They will pitch in and do the work that needs to be done. They will clean up, with or without help from their state government. They love their small town - they love it far greater than any of us who left it. They have made sacrifices to stay there. These sacrifices were made out of love, obligation, or the desire to raise their children in wide open spaces in relative safety surrounded by friends and loved ones. And citizens of Carlton and other small towns provide an intangible service as well.  They keep those who left her connected to a heritage that is fast disappearing - but one worth cherishing and saving. For these and many other reasons, Smalltown America deserves our respect and admiration.

They are there to stay.