Myrtle Creek is really not the first small
town I’ve ever lived in. I started my
mission in an area called Ripplemead, Virginia.
In the fall of 1984 it wasn’t even printed on the area map – someone had
penciled it in.
I had received a bus ticket and was sent
on my way to desolation. I was in
disbelief when (after what felt like hours) the bus pulled up at a drug store
(out in the middle of nowhere, I might add) and told me I was to get off in
Pearisburg, and there at the drugstore stood a sister missionary (my trainer)
waiting for me.
The drive “home” continued in desolation
until finally we were at a trailer park that seemed to have the highest
population of anything I’d seen in the last two hours at least.
New River separated the trailer park from
the larger part of Ripplemead. It
actually was not that big of deal – but when I first arrived, I didn’t ever
believe I would find my way around. Everything
seemed far. Everything seemed uphill.
The area we covered was rather large
geographically. We covered all of Giles
County (marked in red) and Monroe County above it (which is in West Virginia)
and actually served in two wards – one in Pearisburg and one in Pembroke.
I remember passing the Pembroke library
with my second companion. We sat on the
steps and took pictures of each other sitting by the library just to show how
small it was.
After having just moved and not totally
unpacked yet, I have not come across that picture, and so I borrowed this one
from the Internet.
In Pearisburg the life was Hardees or the
Pizza Hut. In Myrtle Creek, we have a
Dairy Queen. Tri-City has Subway. Both cities have True Value Hardware. Canyonville has a casino.
Jenna and I had gone to the Myrtle Creek
library the other day to open accounts. Douglas
County Library System is set up similar to Salt Lake. That is, if there is a book available in
Roseburg or Yoncalla – but if I don’t wish to drive to said location (I don't
even know where Yoncalla is), I can place a hold and have it delivered to
Myrtle Creek. The problem I am having with the library system thus far (aside
from their sizes) is the hours of operation.
When we first moved here, the hours of operation were 6 hours a day, 4
days a week. That has changed. Now it’s only 5 hours a day and only 3 or 4
days a week (depending on what city)
 |
| I like the picture on the library cards |
Myrtle Creek library does not open until
noon. We learned that Canyonville is
open from 10 -2 on Wednesdays (wait, that’s only four hours – they cut the
library hours in half – for it’s one that only operates three days a week. That’s only twelve hours! Holy Cow!)
Myrtle Creek library is bigger than
Pembroke. Bigger than our house –
maybe. Not much. The Canyonville is smaller than our house –
though the building itself is not. There
are three doors. One for city hall, one
for the library and one for the sheriff’s office.
Jenna and I took a ride to Canyonville
this morning because Roland suggested that we’d be there and back before Myrtle
Creek had even opened. But we actually
didn’t leave Canyonville until after the Myrtle Creek library opened.
It was very hard to concentrate on my
reading at the Canyonville library.
There were only three patrons there in the beginning (this included
Jenna and me) but the volume of the librarians conversing with one another is
what I found distracting – but also amusing.
One would think of shushing the patrons and not the librarians.
So that is our adventures (so far) with
the library in Douglas County. I don’t think we’ll be in Myrtle Creek for more
than a year. I don’t know where we’d
go. But we’re three to four hours closer
to other cities that we had considered and can drive around during the
weekends.
I like the small town life right now, but I wonder if I
will get bored with it. Someday I’m going to need to go back on public
transportation. I don’t see that offered
here – not in the way that I’ll be needing it.
So no more posts about public transportation – at least for a
while. I can hear my readers crying
about that already. LOL
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