Impressions, remembered things, changes and no changes . . .

The dust. I forgot how the dust covers everything. Not really forgot that it did, but forgot what it felt like . . . we finally turned on the AC yesterday. Central air - something rarely found in the Northeast but fairly standard here.

The heat . . . still I love the heat. To be able to walk out of the movie theater at 11:30 and it's still warm enough that my sleeveless shirt feels comfortable. And it is still staying fairly reasonable during the day . . . high 80s. Quite comfortable, especially out here in the country where there is so much grass around. So much pavement makes heat more unbearable.

And speaking of that, the evening noises! Oh how I've missed that! Not quiet the way the deck at Rob's apartment seems quiet. In fact the evening noises are quite loud: crickets and locusts and bullfrogs in deafening numbers, and the lightening bugs across the road in the cornfield. The lights from town light up the southern sky, but I climbed on my roof the other night to catch the last of a gorgeous sunset out across the pond, and in the deepening twilight a deer came to drink.

And the strange little things that say small town. Westlakes is the Ace Hardware store, Coach Light the Hallmark store, only they both sell more than just Ace hardware and Hallmark stuff, respectively. Coach Light, where every current or former Moberly girl must register for her bridal gifts no matter where she is now or will be having the weddings. Because any friends or relatives from Moberly that are invited to the wedding will expect to go to Coach Light to look for gifts. We went to register Brandy. They don't even have an electronic system. The woman walked around the store with us, writing down things on paper. Then they'll make up an index card for each item Brandy wants and set a table up for her in their Bridal Center with the index cards and samples of some of the gifts. It's fun to peruse the tables of the other brides, too, sometimes exclaiming "Wow, Kinder Vanderburg is getting married!" "Yes, July 24th."

And the movie theater is located right across from a cornfield. The drive in is open and I'd like to go this weekend; I enjoy drive-ins. Dodgeball is playing; maybe Em, Bruce, Wendy and I will grab some lawn chairs and homemade popcorn and head out there. We might skip the second feature: Day After Tomorrow. Though probably not.

And the smell of Mom's homemade bread, fresh out of the oven! For that matter, the taste of mom's homemade bread fresh out of the oven! *Groans with pleasure* wow how I've missed that!

I went through culture shock though when Em and I went to the grocery store today to shop for bridal shower stuff. I've been in the city so long - and Ithaca had city grocery stores, even if it was just a small town. I was shocked at how little the store offered. It had strawberries but not blueberries. About 4 or 5 different meats only in the deli: a ham, a balogne, a turkey or two, and I'm not sure what else.

For that matter Moberly is down to 2.5 grocery stores. Save More on the south side of town where Em and I shopped, because I wouldn't shop for groceries at the WalMart supercenter on the north side of town. And then there's an Aldi's - the 0.5 grocery store cuz it doesn't have a fresh produce section, among a lot of other things. I like Walmarts but I won't buy gas or groceries there if I can at all help it. I have this sneaking suspicion though that if I lived here I'd have to, one because we live north of town and it's a hassle to drive through town to Save More, and more importantly because Save More's selection was so shockingly poor. Emily assures me that Walmart has much greater selection.

That's the direction the town is growing in, actually: east along highway 24 to catch all the people traveling back and forth to WalMart. It's an institution. What would we do without it? Everybody in town practically goes there at least once a week. When Pizza Hut built it's new building it relocated past the Walmart. A whole new strip mall with a dollar store, a dress store, and a sporting goods store have gone in across the street from Walmart. Walmart knew what it was doing when it was building where it did though. It's just off Highway 63, just past the 63 and 24 junction. Everybody else is figuring out that's a great spot too. They have blue "at this exit . . " signs for that Moberly exit now, telling what fast food restaurants and hotels and gas stations you can find. It's the last Moberly exit heading north - there are three. They built an overpass on hwy 63 to well, pass over hwy 24, and it's quite a sight from the top of that bridge-hill to see everything that's grown up to catch the Hwy traffic. We were always a hwy town, but now . . .

Housing prices in Columbia are getting too high and the college kids are overrunning Columbia, and between that and the expansion of Hwy 63 to 4 lanes the Moberly's definitely headed toward more businesses and more population I think. Easy enough commuting distance to Columbia now.

But the highschool kids still hang out in the McDonald's parking lot at night. Walmart and the movie theater are still the cultural center of the town. They've put in a YMCA though so maybe Moberlians will start being in better shape. The place is changing alright, though. The things that stay the same are the small things, but this town is a town in motion. Strange.