I grew up in a small town. It was large enough to have its own elementary school but not its own grocery store. Getting to the middle school required a 20-minute drive to a slightly larger town. To find such luxuries as a high school, an airport, or a zoo required a 45-minute drive through a rather barren Indian reservation, broken up only once by the bright lights of an isolated bingo hall just off the freeway. It was a rather tedious drive in the days before DVD players were commonplace in every family automobile, but that was life in my small town.
