Living in a small town like Wendell is pretty nice. I for
one live outside the town limits. Going to work each morning and watching the
deer run through my back yard as I make my way to the car, cats sleeping on top
of the car and the trees around it as the dogs chase after the deer. From time
to time I have caught a opossum sleeping on our back porch. The part my wife hasn’t gotten use to yet is
all the bugs and mosquitoes. They really love biting her. She does love
watching the lighting bugs during the summer but after all these years of
living here, she still feels like she is in a scary movie if she has to go
outside at night and hears strange noises coming from the woods.
The town of Wendell is small but big in heart. When the Food
Lion grocery store opened up was cause for a celebration. The store has been
remodeled and expanded numerous of time due to the size of the town’s
population increasing. A McDonalds opened up not too long ago and just recently
went through a remodeling due to so many people trying to even get into the parking
lot let alone the service counter was three feet from the front door.
The local post office is by far the greatest post office I
have encountered. And I had to deal with post offices in California and New
York with much dread. But here in Wendell they call us if we receive a package.
As soon as I go inside the post office they immediately retrieve the package
all without asking for the name on the package, they know its for us. And that
is due to my wife’s nationality of sorts.
You see, looking at the demographics of the racial makeup of
the town of Wendell, it’s not surprising to see that our family sticks out so
easily. My wife is Japanese and with our two boys makes the town of Wendell
list us as 0.02% of Japanese residence. And to be honest we stick out very
clearly in this town. The majority of people who live here are whites, then
Blacks or African American depending on your level of political correctness
followed by Hispanics.
We clearly stick out in this town. But unlike ALL those
Hollywood movies we haven’t experience any negativity or people showing up in
front of our house in white sheets burning a cross. This whole area is a
farming community. Nearly everyone lives works, or have relatives who deal with
farming. With that, the people here have a strong since of family values here.
A lot of people around here are more concerned about getting work done, raising
the kids right and enjoy what God has given them.
When my wife started living here she had all these ideas of
what Southern living was like. Just by all the movies and TV shows showing its
stupidity of what Southern people are like. It did take her a while to get use
to hunting season and listening to guns going off into the night and early
morning. But every negative or persecution she was ready to experience never
happened. People waved at us, saying hello, a true Southern hospitality.
Over the past few years the town has been growing ever so
slowly compared to larger cities but in a way that’s good. People around here
like it nice and quiet. A majority of the stores in town are closed by six PM
and even during the night the whole place is as quiet as a mouse. The morning
and afternoon times have created rush hour traffic with backups, people unable
to turn onto main and side roads as well as the recent move by the town council
to lowering the speed limits inside the town to handle the congestion.
The one big thing going for the town now is a TV show called
Lizard Lick Towing that comes on the TruTV Network. Lot of us around here
watched it for a while but quickly got bored watching it as we kept seeing a
lot of people we know on the show. And many of them talked about being paid to
act that way for the cameras. The place is also a car dealership called Wendell
Auto Brokers located at the corner of Marshburn Road and HWY 97. I pass this
way a lot as does many of my relatives who work the fields near there. Check their business reviews before buying a
car from there.
The local Police are always nice and friendly and on constant
patrol. Except early mornings when one of them is resting is his car across the
street from McDonalds while playing Solitary on the computer. Those screens are
clearly visible from the road when it’s still dark outside. People are nice and
friendly, Anyone seen doing anything strange will quickly call the police and
the next door neighbor to watch. I even sat on my front porch and watched a guy
get a speeding ticket. I knew the guy and called his on his cell phone while
the police was writing the ticket.
The town is a modern day Mayberry and in many ways I hope it
never changes. A by-pass road going around the town would help alleviate the
traffic backups through town would be perfect but that could be a problem as
more and more houses are being built just outside the town limits leaving all
these new home owners having to drive through town to get onto the freeway. I
enjoy the smell of weekend cookouts from the neighbors; watching kids playing throughout
the town and surrounding area testifying on how safe the area is; looking out
into my backyard with my kids in the early morning as deer, raccoons and opossum
walk across the yard are just a drop in the ocean on how I feel about living
here.
My wife is a city girl and after living here for over ten
years now and she still haven’t fully gotten used to it yet. Too quiet and dark
during the night, bugs everywhere (mostly on her), animals walking all around
our yard and constant phone calls from my family wanting to know how we are
doing and if we need anything. Not saying Okinawan families are not close as her
family calls every week but my family calls just about every other day.
In all, Wendell is a nice quiet town. Not too big or small
and still full of Southern values; God, family and local sports.
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