Notes from my Knapsack 12-6-18

Notes from my Knapsack 12-6-18

Jeff Gill

 

What makes us a community?

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We share, many of us, a zip code. 43023.

 

It binds us together if only to confirm at gas pumps that we're using a legit credit card.

 

There is a happy geographic accident, united with school district boundaries, which ties together Deeds Road to the south, Dry Creek in the north, from Highbanks Valley Court to Carmarthen Way, from Hardscrabble Road to the Welsh Hills.

 

We have residents of the village, and the not-village, people who live in the old village, and the newer outlying portions. Heading east on Newark-Granville Road there's village and township, and you have to look closely to know which is which.

 

And yes, some are "Granville" and others are "Newark" address, but the school district makes for a different sort of embrace. Township versus village doesn't mean the same thing when Union Township, let alone the city of Newark, becomes part of the communal whole. And then there's the "great wall" and odd boundaries down towards Heath which always make me squint to make sense of what's Granville and where is not.

 

There are those who have lit the luminaries and sung carols along Broadway, and people who have never seen the Christmas Candlelight Walking Tour; we have long-time village core residents who have made a point of leaving town for many years when the Fourth of July comes along, and others with more tenuous links to "the real Granville" whatever that might be who have stomped trash cans at Bluesfest and walked around selling water for the Scouts at Wildwood for fireworks. Some of us have helped build Wildwood twice over, our actual address shifting between the two experiences, but always feeling a tie to this place, this community, this village writ large.

 

I am concerned, as I've said, about a small but meaningful trend to moving out of Granville, however defined, once your children complete their educational round and receive their high school diploma. It doesn't sound like a sign of health for a community for people to casually want to leave when they've gained a narrow sort of benefit for living here, as important as a good school district can be in college admissions.

 

On the other hand are so many signs of life and health and overall vitality that, quite frankly, many communities whether larger or smaller would love to have on their balance sheet. We have vital, active faith communities in Granville – little known in the village, let alone in the county, is that rates of churchgoing in Granville are higher than anywhere else in Licking County – and the parent commitment to schools is still strong, plus the involvement in things like the Chamber of Commerce or Farmers' Markets or service clubs like Kiwanis and Rotary: it's amazing, and wonderful, and a good sign all around.

 

Granville has much going for it, however defined. Narrowly or widely, and I recommend the later, we encompass a community where community is valued, and celebrated, and supported. Any shortfall or complication I would identify is only because I want even more for us, and perhaps because I see so many social trends at work around the country pushing against local community strengths and solidarity that I want us to hold onto everything we can, because the storms ahead will swamp all sorts of places.

 

We are doing fine here in Our Fayre Village, and even when I mock our bubble with the moniker of Brigadoon, it's to make sure we stay aware of the bubble we've create for ourselves, in a hyper-individualistic, de-centered culture heading into 2019 and beyond. Granville is my adopted hometown, and perhaps its that sense of adoptedness that makes me want to hold onto our community unity all the more fiercely for having gained it secondhand.

 

Or as wiser and wittier people have said before me, I'm not from here, but I got here as fast as I could.

 

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about what brought you to the Granville community at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.