Small Town Perspective

Many years ago we made a decision to move our family to the small town of  Lockhart, Texas. Some of that decision was connected to a job but a big part of it had to do with where we lived at the time. You see there was a lot going on in Austin, Texas in January 1979 that told me to get the hell out. After years of court battles the Austin ISD was beginning to implement forced busing of students to "racial balance" their schools. Nobody seemed happy about it but it was about to happen. Another issue was that Austin was on the cusp of tremendous growth. My wife and I had both grown up in Austin and were not impressed by the changes the growth was bringing. So when an opportunity to move to a small town only 30 miles from Austin we felt like it was a good move. We had three children and felt like a Lockhart would be a great place to rear them. So I took the job, we bought a house and moved.

Sounds like a happily ever after moment, doesn't it? Well, ever after is a long time and, believe it or not there are some drawbacks to small town life. To begin, small towns are usually small and stay that way because people want it that way. They like the idea of being a big fish in a little pond, knowing all of their neighbors, and being able to circumnavigate the city in about 10 minutes. The crime rate is low as are the taxes so whats' not to like about that? I soon discovered that my plan to work and live in Lockhart, Texas could soon be live in Lockhart and commute 25 miles to work somewhere else. Lockhart for me became a bedroom community like probably 80% of the people living here at the time. The Chamber of Commerce worked to get new businesses to move here with limited success. The excuse was that we were not on the interstate highway, or we didn't have adequate rail siding, or any number of other excuses that the companies chose elsewhere to locate. When Wal-mart moved to town in 1980 bringing 100 jobs you would have thought that someone shot the community's milk cow. "It was going to kill the small businesses in town" was the claim. The jobs were sneered at as not paying a "living wage" . The town went from 4 grocery stores to 1 in about 20 years and the people complained about not having a choice.So, as it turns out, unless you have lived here all your life and inherit the family business or work for the government, a decent paying job in Lockhart has been about as rare as the Plum Creek Monster (don't ask).

Fastforward about 30 years. We have had a nice influx of young, educated people that have moved to Lockhart much for the same reasons we did. Some of them are trying to establish new businesses here because the "growth is coming". They have some great ideas brought from other places they have lived about how to enhance the city and our quality of life. Of course their input is received with open arms and they are embraced as valuable members of the community, right? NOT HARDLY!!! They are admonished for "not understanding the way it's done here" or "we have never done it that way" or "you're new here right?" The fact is that those that stay will probably have to take jobs in Austin and do what I did all those many years ago. Kind of depressing how things don't change in a small town, isn't it?

Here is my theory about it and this will probably piss off some of my readers but I am past the point of caring. Small towns like Lockhart will never be successful because the people that stay here, the ones in charge, do not want it to be successful. Why you might ask? Because success in a town attracts competition. If you are a long-time lawyer in town and the town grows other lawyers might move in. They might be better than you and take some of your clients. So the old timers say the right things but can always find something wrong with every new idea brought forward. They think all change is bad because you can't always control it and they may not be in charge if it does. This attitude permeates this town and I am sick of it!

I am winding down on my career and don't have the fight left in me to tilt that windmill. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results defines insanity so I plan to skip over that diagnosis, thank you.