Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor,

Sometime, somewhere back, I heard it said, &8220;May God bless you enough to live in a small town.&8221; Recently, the truth of that statement has revealed itself to me, and I have you, Shelby County, to thank.

I&8217;m not from around here. This isn&8217;t where I grew up, but this summer I&8217;ve begun to see that this is where I came from.

Both sets of my grandparents lived in Columbiana, and my parents, Dawn and Allan, were high school sweethearts from SCHS.

Mom was a methodist, Dad was a baptist, and they all loved God just the same.

As for me, I grew up in California, and as you might expect, it&8217;s a completely different world over there.

I get a good number of funny looks when people spot my car tags. The younger ones think I&8217;m headed in the wrong direction coming back South instead of going back West, and it&8217;s those funny looks that compel me to write you.

After I graduated college last summer I rambled all over the country for 24,000 miles trying to find what fit, trying to find what felt like home.

After all that I can honestly tell you, you aren&8217;t going to find a better front porch anywhere than right here in Shelby County. Most people don&8217;t even have porches in California.

When my grandfather, Frank &8220;Pop&8221; Suttle, passed away on my birthday this summer I had the opportunity to move in with Grandma on the farm for a while.

We sure do miss Pop, but living in his community, the community of my roots, makes me feel like he&8217;s still around.

Down here I meet folks around town who tell me how they used to help Pop bail hay, or how he taught them Physics at Montevallo back in the day, or how I don&8217;t know them but they know me because their son or daughter was friends with my mom and dad in grade school.

&8220;I knew your Daddy since he was this big!&8221; they tell me.

These are the things that make small town living blessed. Maybe it&8217;s a small town thing, maybe it&8217;s a southern thing, but down here people still know what it means to be a good neighbor.

Friends take the time to come by just to visit and bring you homegrown squash, and Piggly Wiggly still rules the roost because being a loyal customer means something.

You can&8217;t fake calling a small town your home if it isn&8217;t; these things take generations. You can&8217;t buy roots, you grow them, so don&8217;t think the grass is always greener someplace like California.

In the immortal words of Pop, &8220;Character does count,&8221; and Shelby County, you&8217;ve got it, so thanks for helping a city slicker appreciate the finest things in life: family, community, sweet tea and fried okra.

Now how about you go pick something from your garden and visit with a neighbor?

In the meantime, I&8217;ll see you at the Pig.

Cole Suttle

Columbian