This is the story of two aging city folks in small-town USA.

Pixley isn’t really the name of our town but a nod to the small southern town of the 60’s sitcoms. How small is small? Well, Pixley is the county seat, so it’s not as small as Bugtussle. We have about 3,500 human residents. I am pretty sure the farm animals in the county outnumber the people.

There are no taxi cabs, buses, or rental cars here. We think there’s an Uber driver, but he or she keeps short hours. We are near an interstate, so we have a variety of fast-food restaurants, several inexpensive motels, a Piggly Wiggly, a Walmart, and a Waffle House. The closest city with over 50,000 people is about 45-minutes of beautiful country driving and one state line away.

Our hospital has about 35 beds including rehabilitative care beds. We do not have a cardiologist. If you have a heart attack, they will stabilize you and send you by ambulance to a hospital with cardiac care. You may have guessed that this involves crossing the state line.

Our town has been around for nearly 140 years. It became the county seat when a prominent citizen convinced the railroad to build the train station here. The trains still pull through here regularly.

Pixley is by far the smallest town I have ever inhabited, but with a hospital and multiple places to eat and shop, it is not nearly the smallest town in the area. Still, the apartment complex I moved from had nearly as many residents as this little town. My husband left a town with a population over 80 times greater than that of Pixley. It’s a culture shock for both of us now and then.

When I was searching for a home here, I would strike up conversations with residents, telling them I would soon be their neighbor. They would ask where I was from, and when I said the name of the beautiful and vibrant coastal city where I was living at the time, they invariably asked the same question – why come here?

It’s not easy to explain. You just have to live it. But we hope to provide a glimpse into this world.