September 16, 2019
After arriving in town on the weekend, we set aside Monday to do some of the other things we had to do to prepare to move into our new home. As veterans of many moves in the past, we figured that we would be waiting in long lines most of the morning, accomplish one or two things, and limp home at lunch beaten down by mindless bureaucrats. That’s the way it had always been in the past. This was different. First of all, virtually all of the businesses in town are situated on Main Street, a thoroughfare that bisects the entire town and covers perhaps a mile or a mile and a half or two miles. For my entire life, I’ve wanted to live somewhere in which I could walk to breakfast. Now I have that. It turned out that everything we needed in River Falls was within a few blocks of each other.
We had breakfast at the South Fork Café and, at 9:00 walked a block down Main Street to The First National Bank of River Falls. We thought we might have to wait, because we had no appointment. The woman with whom we had worked in the past and who had set up our account on the phone saw us walk in, however, and came to greet us with a big smile and a hug. She spoke in the cheerful, sing-song manner of speech common up here (“How ya doin’ guys?”) and turned us over to a woman who helped us get checks and debit cards. Done by 9:20.
Our next stop was city hall, a half-block off of Main, to put the utilities in our name and find out how all of that worked. It turned out that electricity, water, garbage collection, and recycling was all on one account and one bill. We were done in five minutes, and they directed us to the gas company. I was beginning to like this town.
In our longest trip of the morning, we drove about four blocks over to 2nd Street, one block off of Main. We explained that we weren’t even sure if our home needed gas or if it was all electric. The clerk turned to her computer and prepared to type in our address, but when we told her what it was, she said, “Yep; you have gas.” Didn’t need to look it up; she knew most of the addresses in town and whether or not they had access to gas power. My affection for small towns was growing.
At the post office, also on 2nd Street, we explained that we were staying at our son’s house temporarily, until our closing on September 30. We were having our Nashville mail forwarded there and wanted the delivery man to know so that he would not be confused by the new names at that address. She jotted this info on a post-it note and said, “Yep, yep; I’ll let him know.” No forms to fill out, no computer entries, a post-it note!
Back on Main Street, we found the State Farm office, and walked in, stepping over a sleeping dog just inside the door. We soon discovered that most River Falls businesses seem to have a policy that says, “No appointment, no problem.” In minutes we were in an office with a young woman explaining that we needed to change our address and some other things on our policy. When we gave her our new address, she smiled and said, “I just hung up the phone after talking to John, the previous owner of that condo.” Small world, small town.
In short, we finished all of our business, had time to go shopping (the grocery store was on Main Street—where else?), and returned home by 11:00.
I think I’m going to love small town life.