6. Banks

I live in Whitewright, Texas. Population under 2000. With as much intensity as I dislike Bonham, I like Whitewright. It's downtown stretches a block. The majority of those buildings are one story tall. It has a very sweet little movie theater that plays 1 movie a week. For a small Texas town it also has a more liberal feel. The mayor is black and I have never heard a negative word said about the homosexual couples that inhabit it. On top of that, I have even met a couple of big city transplants. That isn't even counting my mother, who followed us up here and has tried to make herself out to be a local. She took a volunteer job at the Meals on Wheels and spends many a day at the center playing canasta "with the girls". Months passed with her saying, "I fine, how you?" to me before I finally asked her what on earth she was talking about. I came to find out this was her form of country vernacular. My mother, who is half Japanese and half white, thoroughly believed that everyone she said this to thought her to be from the area. My husband, who has a thick drawl (for a city boy), was actually asked if he was from California by one of the hardware store girls. Had he just said, "how you" to her, obviously, she would have known better.

A lot of things are nice about living in a small town: no waits at the restaurant, no automated messages at the water department,  the children get to wear their Halloween costumes to school and everyone knows you. For instance, my husband goes to our bank, in town, once a week. When he pulls up he is greeted with, "Hi, Nick". From there, he can just tell them he would like some money. There is no signing anything in triplicate or giving samples of blood. They hand him his money, and 3 dum-dum lollipops, one for each child that they know is stashed in the vehicle. I went in to my previous bank, once a week, for seven years. Rarely, I could see the faintest hint of recognition cross their face. In Whitewright, you feel like a rock star.

The Whitewright bank does not have an ATM. One time when I was in Sherman I decided to run by one at the bank branch there. I pulled my car in to the drive through and ran my card. It instructed me to enter my PIN number but there were no numbers on the screen to push. I was perplexed. I jabbed my finger at the display. I ran my thumb across. I canceled the transaction and ran my card again. All to no avail. I tried everything short of jumping out of the vehicle and kicking the machine. Just as I was about to go in to the lobby and tell the stupid bank that their stupid machine was broken- I saw the keypad. I was expected to punch the numbers in manually on an antiquated, metal, pad. Dallas probably has laser facial recognition by now. I wouldn't know because I am still stuck with the Atari 2600 of bank instruments.  

Here is an interesting tidbit of knowledge that I recently discovered about Whitewright and completely on subject, given the title.... (you have to take what you can get in a town this small)
 
"Whitewright was the home of US Lieutenant Joe Tom Meador, who after World War II looted several major pieces of art from a cave near Quedlinburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. On April 19, 1945, American troops occupied Quedlinburg. Various treasures of art were secured in a cave near the castle Altenburg. Meador was responsible for the security of the cave. Meador, a soldier with good knowledge of art, recognized the importance of the treasures (among them being Gospel of Samuel and the Crystals of Constantinople). He sent the treasures to Whitewright via army mail, and the art was placed in a safe at the First National Bank of Whitewright. Meador died in 1980, and his heirs tried to sell ten pieces of Beutekunst (looted art) on the international art market. After a long search and judicial processes, the art was returned to Germany in 1992 and was investigated because of damages to the pieces. At first those stolen artifacts were exhibited in Munich and Berlin but were finally returned to Quedlinburg in 1993. However, two of the pieces stolen by Meador are still in the United States at an unknown location."

If my description of Whitewright has intrigued you enough to want to move here...