Well, I Was Born In A Small Town

John Mellencamp starts off his iconic hit Small Town with these lyrics “Well I was born in a small town, and I live in a small town, probably die in a small town, oh those small communities”.  He was writing about Bloomington, Indiana which has a population near 80,000.  I know everything is relative, but that hardly seems to qualify as a “small town”.

When I think of a small town, I think of the towns in Pennsylvania that range from maybe 2,000 to 10,000 people.  There are hundreds of them within a few hours of Allentown.  To me, an amazing thing about each of those communities is that they were, at one time, self containing. You could get whatever you needed in that small town and never have to leave.  In my youth, Slatington had a stationery store, a men’s clothing store, and even a hat shop!  Each community had its own movie theater. Slatington had the Arcadia. Palmerton, the Palm. Of course, they are all  gone today.

So what happened to these small towns. Why are they just a shell of their former selves?  Most of them were built around a particular industry and those industries are probably gone.  In the sixties more women joined the workforce and more families had more income and wanted to have a larger variety of things to buy than what they might find in their town.  The addition of malls and shopping centers attracted people away from the small towns.  Eventually, most families had two cars and trips away from town were much easier.  But the towns, minus the wide variety of shops and services, still exist more as bedroom communities.

Yesterday, I visited Tuscarora State Park, in Schuylkill  County,and decided to return home on a circuitous route through many of the small towns I am talking about. My trip took me through Tamaqua, Nesquehoning, Lansford, Summit Hill, Lehighton, and Slatington.  It was a nostalgia tour for sure.  But in each town I was able to remember when they were thriving and able to compare them to what they look like today.  Yes, I miss the old days.

So I guess this post is a bit of a cautionary tale. Everything has a life span and everything is constantly changing. Enjoy and cherish what you have today. It may soon be gone.