Smalltown America still tops

In the small town in far western Kentucky where I grew up, we had one doctor and one licensed plumber.

The doctor was a huge St. Louis Cardinal's fan. Late one night the doctor was listening to the Cardinal's game on the radio and got a call from the plumber. His daughter was running a temperature and she couldn't keep anything down. The doctor, either having had a long day or having seen lots of whatever the little girl had, told the plumber to keep her comfortable, try to get a couple of aspirins down her and he'd see her in the morning. It didn't satisfy the plumber, but what could he do?

It wasn't many weeks later that the doctor was home, used the bathroom and his sewer backed up. He called the plumber, and what do you think the plumber told him? Yep ... keep it comfortable, try to get a couple of aspirins down it and he'd see it in the morning .... and hung up.

Late that night, in that small town, the services of the plumber and the doctor were suddenly of relative value.

Last week in Louisville when a parking attendant asked me how I was doing, I replied that I was hot. He said, "No sir, hot is my son today in Iraq in full battle gear and the temperature is 110." My 90 degree day off was suddenly much cooler compared to what this young man was doing on my behalf.

What we see and hear on TV is relative also, only it ends up forming too many of our opinions, beliefs and moods.

The talking heads on TV, particularly the cable stations, spend hours upon hours talking about this or that situation. It is my opinion that too many of them want to be newsmakers rather than news reporters. I long for the days of Walter Cronkite or Huntley and Brinkley ... but I am showing my age.

While the screens are filled with talk shows and news hours to keep us abreast of how the big banks are struggling to turn their businesses around, locally our banks keep working to help their clients. While GM files for bankruptcy and looks for federal bailout assistance, locally our factories look inward to create more efficiency, try to work harder and try to make more sales. And while the overly well paid CEO of some national retail chain suggests to his IRS corporately structured and insulated from risk board that bankruptcy is their next logical step, a local retailer puts out feelers for a second job on the weekends.

But none of this local effort seems to make the TV news, and that's a shame. Because to me, the real recovery of our economic woes will come from all the small towns across the country, and from all the citizens in those small towns.

Maybe I don't understand thoroughly enough how the federal stimulus program is going to, or is supposed to, work. Maybe my 60 years of being shown and taught how self-dependency, hard work and sometimes sacrifice can lead to success is now out of touch with the economics of the 21st century. Or maybe the real TV news isn't out of Hollywood with the death of an entertainer, or the saber rattling of some foreign politician threatening our navy, or if a white collar, Wall Street thief was given 150 years in prison ... even if all of those will lead some cable news program.

No, just maybe the real news is what is going on back here in our small towns with shop owners, factory workers, teachers, farmers, parents, nurses, our seniors and hundreds of other folks not worthy of making the national news. I think they continue to be the backbone of our community, state and nation ... and who will turn the economy around. They made us great once. I see no reason why they won't continue to do so.

I really believe their daily, unpublicized efforts are more important, for they represent the best of our country. What some TV cable producer calls the news may just be a sensational, temporary distraction with hardly any real value at all ... relatively speaking.
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Bill Bailey is president of the Greater Seymour Chamber of Commerce. He writes a monthly column for The Tribune.