Up until recently, the voice of the Kansas City Star columnist and KRPS-TV personality Charles Guswelle spoke to me of life in a midwestern small town the way Kansas City was before World War II. Maybe others would refer to KC back then as a "city," but it's been my experience that as a young person you yearn for the excitement of the city, but as you get older the small town begins to exert its own draw. And I'm getting to that stage in life when small-town life is getting more and more attractive. It has been so for Guswelle, in whose appearances he recalls the outdoors parks where he used to take his dates when he was a kid. It appears to be a typical small town life, nothing very sophisticated, just innocent fun.

And that's why I'm growing into Nevada -- after all, we've lived in the town (in the same house) for 31 years. Every once in a while I like to contrast our lives down here in the South with the ones we led in the Northeast. (And this covers everything from New York to Minneapolis) In a city we had mailmen, but we didn't know them well enough to talk with them when they came to deliver the daily mail. The first couple of years we lived on Spring Street, Mr. Steve delivered the mail and his wife taught our daughter when she was in grade school.

That first year in Nevada, our colleague Mrs. Reba Cunningham took me aside one afternoon and asked me what church my family and I went to. The question shocked me because in a city where there are any number of different religions, religion is a very private matter, a kind of philosophic minefield that one is very early warned against entering.

When I started teaching at Cottey, I was struck by the way its teachers stayed by themselves. Faculty had parties, but the only guests were other Cottey faculty members. I immediately joined the Methodist choir because the Methodist choir director Forster Day, asked me if I would contribute my bass voice to the back row. I was a happy member of that choir for some 25 years, until my physical condition made that virtually impossible.

Another small town feature I've thoroughly enjoyed was the Nevada Community Choir, directed by Wes Morton, whose directing was meant to encourage and bring the best out in all his singers.

When kids in a small town reach a certain age, they always start complaining there's nothing to do in their free time. I've always found this a strange complaint.

There's plenty to do here.

Merry Christmas!