PanningForGold

Just because this is a small town and the locals are all connected if not related  It really is a small world  doesn’t mean that it’s a tight-knit community.  Five years back we were having a campfire with some neighbours one of which works at the university.  I was working at the bank at the time and we started telling tales.  Turns out my neighbour worked in the same office as Joe the bursar who makes daily deposits at the bank.  Next day Joe walks into the bank and I mention that one of the people he shares an office with is my neighbour X.

Joe: “Oh” he says to me, “so you must live over on hill street” (location and names are changed to protect the guilty). 

Me:  “Yes, right next to x, in fact her father in law used to own both properties” 

Joe: “Really, you must be in the old Smith house, I grew up around there”

Me: “Yes”  my wife has always told me if you want to let a local know just where we live all you have to do is let them know that we are in the “Old Smith Place” so I was amused by the response.

Joe: “Oh so you are next to the Hatfields” 

 At this point my dear readers you have to know I am not always quickest horse on the track as Joe’s last name happens to be Hatfield.

Me: “oh yeah the entire clan lives on my street” and I started humming the theme song from deliverance ‘dueling banjo’s’  the middle part of the song

Joe: “You live near Jane?”

Me: “Yes Jane shares a property line with us, do you know her?” I innocently ask.

Joe “She is my grandmother”

Now I am seriously regretting my rendition of dueling banjo’s and I’m trying to find a way to dig my way out of the hole I’ve now found myself in, and this is not a little hole.  Joe is the bursar of the university, the largest business around, the reason the whole town exists, a town that for some reason has a bank on every corner and I just called his grandmother and most of his family redneck hillbillies. You would think at this point I’d know when to keep my mouth shut, but I haven’t  So I add, “I’m sorry to hear about your grandfather I didn’t know him well but he was always nice to us.”  His response? “what happened with my grandfather?”

“Uhm Joe, he died a year ago from lung cancer” 

“Really?” he says to me, “I don’t talk keep up with that side of the family if you haven’t noticed they are a little strange up there, see you tomorrow” and out the door he went leaving me scratching my head in wonder.