Whittling away at life

The announcement in our local newspaper on Friday last that come March the publication would change from a 5 day plus Sunday publication to become a 2 day (Tuesday/Thursday) plus Sunday publication..  Of course they portrayed the change in a positive light, saying better, more in depth coverage etc., etc..  But the fact is that for the amount of news, a three days a week paper is more cost efficient way to disseminate what little local news there is.

Small towns in rural America are dying a slow agonizing death; at least in the northeast and mid-west.  Our youth are migrating from the bucolic but economically destitute areas of their birth to the more thriving metropolitan vistas with better employment and cultural opportunities.

As more and more of the amenities of the city and town of my growing up days fall by the wayside I’m reminded of some of the patients we’d care for in surgery.  They consisted, usually, of diabetic smokers suffering from end stage renal disease.  Their peripheral vascular systems were shutting down and their feet, being at the far end of the circulation highway, began to suffer a slow death from gangrene and they ended up in the OR having first one toe amputated and then, on subsequent return visits to the operating room suite, would have more toes, then half a foot, until a mid calf amputation was necessary.  The surgeon whittled away their body parts ‘til death stepped in to bring surcease, finally, for the patient.

And so it is with our little communities; being whittled away of their economic livelihood until amid the relics of the past only the shell of what was once a thriving community is left.

image from Google images. Photo by
by Leisa Collins