Just a Small-Town Boy

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What happened next renewed my faith. Within hours of the vote, a new petition that favored the gay speakers gathered twice the number of signatures from residents old and new. Others raised money for a full-page ad supporting diversity. In short order, the school board reversed itself, and the gay couple was allowed to speak.

But a more important outcome illustrates the unique nature of small-town life: The controversy divided not strangers, but neighbors. And so a band of residents (including my wife) came together to keep the conversation alive. The group, which still meets today, includes both a lesbian and a local evangelical minister who believes homosexuality is a sin.

The fact of the matter is that neither Thoreau nor Keillor get it quite right. Both reduce the country to a kind of parody opposition to the city. It's my firm conviction, though, that if you spend five minutes talking to a rube, you'll discover a sophisticated intelligence and rich emotional life. Spend five minutes talking to a member of the urban intelligentsia, and you'll find a rube.

In other words, each of us has the same capacity for openness and intolerance. The controversy over the gay speaker could happen anywhere -- city folk wear blinders, too. In fact, for all its diversity, the city's segmented society makes it easy to stay in your own circle and to dismiss those with whom you disagree. Our lives here are so intertwined that we're forced into deeper relationships. Here, someone you disagree with is liable to bring you a meal when you're sick.

LAST FALL I WENT with my family and two others to gather apples at a nearby orchard. The trees were heavy with fruit, row upon row. The sun turned the orchard into an ocean of light. A pileated woodpecker patrolled our progress. One had only to reach out a hand to find it filled with warm, sweet fruit. Our children played together under the trees, eating apples. Later I made quart after quart of applesauce.

This day has become emblematic of my reasons for living here: all the gifts the planet has to offer, all the warm time spent preparing food and eating it with good friends and their children -- friends who will be here next year, children who will grow up together and learn country ways.

Above all, moving here has allowed me to make room for these experiences. And I'm more convinced than ever that this is life as I ought to be living it. What don't I do in order to have time to gather apples in the fall? I don't read the daily newspaper -- an omission that would have scandalized my urban news-junky self. (But I stay informed and send letters to politicians and editors.) I don't worry about my career. (But I write every day and am more intensely engaged in my work.) Ultimately, I try not to worry about much of anything. That leaves me plenty of time.

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