When we have guests stay with us, one thing we strive to provide is a feeling that they are at home while away. We can offer lots of little homely touches, and be as welcoming as possible, but one thing that really draws you in is where we are. It occurred to me that I should share a bit of what our home is like for us. So much of why we love it here, as much as the beautiful surroundings, is in the community we are a part of. I want to take a moment to five you a taste of what our town is like from the inside looking out.People always talk about living in a small town with similar cliches. You could rob the whole town blind during a football, basketball, or baseball game, and if someone goes to state, you may not even find the town.They say if you sneeze at the post office, someone will say gesundheit at the bank, and it is true. In such a small community, everyone knows pretty much everything about everyone, but they also care about everyone, and everyone has an opinion on everything. It's nice, though, whenever something great is going on in your life, everyone congratulates you, and when there is tragedy, everyone is there to make sure you are doing alright.
So many times I have found myself in some small need and not even had to ask for a hand because someone was already there to help. That's just the nature of people here in Muenster, they have big hearts and are always ready to give.
We have a lot of groups like the Jaycees, school alumni associations, Knights of Columbus, etc... that are always throwing a fish fry or a crawfish boil to raise funds for a charity, and these people love to give. Heck, even our fire department is volunteer! It is not at all uncommon for an item like a jar of grandma's pickles to go for thousands of dollars at a charity silent auction at the community Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. Though in all fairness, homemade pickles are pretty dang good.
Guests often ask what we do, living in Muenster. For such a small town, there are a lot of things going on around here, and most of it is to raise money. People here are really athletic, so the fun runs are really popular as well as the bike race at Germanfest. It seems like every other week has some sort of event from concerts to alumni/student games to festivals like Germanfest and Oktoberfest that all the nonprofits in the area throw, so life here is a little more exciting than you'd think!
People here won't give each other directions with road names or numbers, but more commonly things like "It's north of town, take the turnoff about 4 telephone poles past Mike's house". This sounds crazy, but it works well here. Everyone knows Mike, and where he lives. When we lived in Houston, years ago, I didn't know my neighbors, let alone the whole town.
When we first moved here, my son had parked his truck at the bottom of a hill down by the creek. A rainstorm came through and he couldn't get it up the hill because of the mud. Our new neighbor saw what was going on and came right over with his tractor and pulled him up to the road. Nobody really thinks about it, that's just the way its always been.
