Small Town America has a Heart

By A. Renee Bergstrom, Lanesboro, Minnesota, U.S.

I live out in the country. For the last couple of months, my husband and I have been out in nature, gardening and clearing our woods. The isolation has almost been positive for us.

Our granddaughter, who was working online in her household with the rest of her family, decided that she would enjoy the quiet down here. We have a loft above our garage, so had our 23-year-old granddaughter with us for the whole month of May. It has been wonderful. We see her in the evenings, and we bike together, each day. Yesterday, she and I kayaked the Root River.

Our town is small, but it’s a very tight community. One woman made masks and put them on her front porch so that people could come and get them. When an 87-year-old woman had a birthday, her family brought her to the park. A whole wave of cars drove by to help her celebrate. The town did a parade for the high school graduates as well, because graduation was canceled. A pianist in town records a song each week and sends it out by email to lighten our hearts on the weekends. Lanesboro Arts and Commonweal Theatre are closed for performances, so they did a Facebook celebration for the opening of a podcast "radio show" called the Root River Anthology, a delightful hometown story. There is a Facebook page for Lanesboro COVID-19, to advertise available services. There have been so many community gestures here to keep people feeling connected and supported.