At Your Service by Maggie Inge

Thornton Wilder is best known for his Pulitzer Prize winning play “Our Town.” He is less known for a related quote, “You’ve never known hell until you’ve lived in a small town.” Perhaps Wilder was referring to the simple fact that in a small community the dark side of human frailty is all there – in your face. From time to time, I understand his meaning.

If my phone is any indication of a trend, then I must conclude that more and more people are feeling the financial pinch and looking for new ways to get their hands on some money. Lotto sales are up, increasing by over a billion dollars in the last year. But, what is making my own phone ring is people looking for help with Internet businesses.

On Saturday evening the MARK Group celebrated 30 years of service to this community. As events go, it was among the best: awards were given to the deserving; the food was good and presented in appetizing ways and the dancing was energetic. There was one thing, however, that made the evening extraordinary.

A meeting in Sidney brought home the reality that Delaware County really is larger than the state of Rhode Island. Lucky for me, it was a gorgeous spring day. I took the scenic route – as if there were another kind. It served as a refresher course on just how beautiful this part of the country really is and why tourism is such a natural industry for the region.

I am suffering from early onset election fatigue syndrome. It is a chronic condition that strikes every four years sometime in the fall; hence, the early onset. Perhaps it came early this year because the all-out battle for the American presidency has already been waging for a year now.