Essays From West of 98: Neighbors in Real Life

When good ideas move from the abstract into real life

When I wrote my last essay entitled “Neighbors,” Stamford was not yet in a full-blown water crisis. When I published that essay two days later, we were grappling with the ramifications of an equipment failure at our brand-new water treatment plant and it would be several more days before the matter concluded itself. I’m not here to talk more about the details of that crisis, because any of you who follow me on Facebook have seen me spill enough words on it already. Now that the crisis has resolved, our folks in Stamford are more than pleased to be back to “normal” life. But there was something unexpectedly powerful about the timing of last week’s events.

I wrote 650 words on the importance of being a neighbor. Then, in the days to follow, we watched our community live out the concepts of neighborliness. I wrote:

“Neighbor is a powerful word. Let’s explore that power.”

Did we ever explore it! In the span of about five days, I saw a group of people mobilize into action in a truly inspiring manner. People bought bottled water and made it available to others. A local bulk water company set up their truck and passed out water to anyone with a container that could haul it away. People checked on their vulnerable neighbors. As we mobilized state resources to assist and received deliveries of massive quantities of bottled water and ice, a literal army of people volunteered themselves for distribution and delivery. People took it upon themselves to check on homebound residents and then deliver ice and water. Companies and other communities contacted us to make donations and deliver donated water. Kind citizens offered to bring drinks and snacks to City employees manning the water treatment plant to fix the problem. A local church gave away hamburgers while they volunteered in the distribution of water and ice. There are even a handful of stories of water appearing on people’s porches and they had no idea how it got there.

The point of this essay is not to recount all the acts of kindness that we witnessed in town. Simply put, even if I *could* remember all the goodness that I saw, I would still miss countless acts of kindness that I never even knew about. People were just doing kind things and not telling anyone about it. Rather, this is today’s point. We spend a lot of time talking about ways to make communities better. I do it and so do many other people. People write books and make careers out of these topics. Occasionally, it can become an abstract topic full of hypotheticals and those conversations can become detached from reality and real life.

If there’s one overarching reason why I so deeply admire and respect Wendell Berry, it is that he has spent a lifetime writing on the topics that he lives out. There are no mere hypotheticals and abstractions written from the comfort of a far-away place. He actually left a prestigious position in New York City as a young man and moved back to Kentucky for that very purpose. He writes about farming while driving a team of mules across his fields. He writes about the loss of local community while living within local community and experiencing that decline.

Good ideas are only good to a point when they stay in the hypothetical, abstract realm. Good ideas truly matter when they impact real people in real places. As we discuss these topics of rural revitalization and community improvement, it is important that we remember the necessity of real world action. That is the only way that lives and places are truly improved by good ideas.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If that’s the case, Stamford just wrote a masterpiece.

James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and podcast. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to West of 98 wherever podcasts are found.