10 reasons to like Beavercreek

There was a hint of whine in my voice in my last post. Not good. So, to rectify, I offer you the following list.

Top 10 reasons to like Beavercreek (Edited--I had mis-numbered, so I actually had 11 reasons. That bodes well, don't you think? I could think of 11 reasons! Hurray!)

1. There really are a number of creeks and wetlands here, and I'm told there are actually beavers.
2. My children and I bike over a little wooden bridge, which spans a babbling brook, on our way to school and back every day. This is magic.
3. Beside the babbling brook there is a field of long grass, and just as the sun is rising in the morning, a low fog, mysterious and cool, hangs just above it. Often there is a flock of geese nestled in the fog, quietly going about their goose business.
4. I keep meeting people who have lived here their entire lives. Or they went away for college, and now they've settled back here, and their children have the same social studies teacher in middle school that they did--stuff like that. It's not the kind of small town that is dying out because the young leave and stay gone as soon as they can. Quite the opposite--Beavercreek is growing and the schools are almost bursting.
5. Ms. Rigano, my son's 3rd grade teacher. I believe she is a teaching genius. "She's the strictest teacher I've ever had," Jacob reports. But he also can't wait to get to school, because they're having a class election (part of their study of the presidential election), or they're opening their store, or they're publishing their books, or they're calling a NY fire fighter on the anniversay of 9/11 to hear in his words about his personal experience at the World Trade Centers, or they're practicing with money for when they work a day at Bob Evans. And on and on!
6. Ms. LeVesseur, my daughter's 1st grade teacher, another teaching dynamo. She jokes with them all the time. They are happy and relaxed and productive and they laugh a lot. When she reads aloud, she does all the voices, and when a child raises his hand and spills out a story that is completely unrelated, she listens and lets him finish and doesn't rush him back to the task at hand. She made dollars with her photo on them, LeVesseur Loot, and when the children earn them for doing great work, they proudly slip them into their handmade wallets. And on and on.
7. My neighbors are kind, thoughtful, and generous. My neighbors' kids are cheerful, happy, unusually polite, and fun. My kids love to play with them.
8. BSA (Beavercreek Soccer Association). Someone gave some land to Beavercreek, and a soccer "complex" was built, which means 27 soccer fields all located together, behind a car dealership at the edge of town. Game days are madness. It's also really fun. It feels like every family in Beavercreek is out there, staying for hours as they lumber with their lawn chairs and coolers from one child's game to another. The parents take turns working at the concession stand in a big shed, or they volunteer to coach teams (as Justin is doing). Goals are occasionally scored. Children get sweaty. It's good.
9. While our school levy has not passed, there is a passionate and sizeable grass roots movement that's working right now to explain to the good citizens of Beavercreek how important, how crucial that levy is. I'm getting involved and learning about how voting activism works. You just never know what you're going to learn about when you move to a new community.
10. Barney's Hardware. Yeah, you could drive a little farther up the road to your choice of Lowe's or Home Depot, but Justin and I try to get it at little old Barney's as much as we can. They've attached hammers onto the doors in some clever way, which serve as the door handles. They have some very young-looking employees who will trot--trot, I tell you--right over to help you reach something or find something. And this story: I needed to order a toilet seat. The young woman at the counter was recording my info in a giant, old-fashioned log book. She asked for my phone number, and after I gave it, an old guy standing in line behind me said in a perfect deadpan, "Wait a sec, let me just jot that down," and pretended to reach into his pocket for paper and pen. That cracked me up. He (clearly a regular at Barney's), said, "Don't you just hate it when you have to tell everybody in the store what your phone number is?"

"Well," I said, "I sensed I was among friends."

"You are," he said.

And you know? He meant it.