Small Town Life — By Tommy Purser

As a small town newspaper editor, I have always subscribed to the belief that small town life revolves around its children. My three “children” are now on the north side of 40, but in a lot of ways my life still revolves around them. Most of my grandchildren are on the north side of 20, but in a lot of ways my life still revolves around them.
When I went to the baseball field last night, the parking lot was almost full. The baseball team of archrival Appling County was in Hazlehurst for a contest between two of the state’s best Class 2A teams. There were two communities’ children involved in the game and the villages were here enmasse to root for and support the children who mean so much to both of these small, south Georgia towns.
While I spent three years as a college student in the big city of Atlanta, the remaining 72 years of my life have been spent in small towns. I wouldn’t trade those 72 years of my life for anything.
I realize that, as a young man, I could have shown greater ambition, yearned for more money, more possessions, more prestige, more of life’s comforts, more, more, more.
But small town life, with all its drawback, all its lacks, all the wants of life that it fails to provide, has been a blessing for me and mine in so many ways.
I wouldn’t even think of trading my life’s journey through the backroads of rural Georgia for the riches and comforts that never came my way.