Musings in a Small Town

The sun shone and in our neck of the woods, a 62-degree breeze glides though. For January that was petty good. Maybe even amazing. It probably could have been that warm for two weeks if the sun had shown up sooner.
Over lunch (at the Asian buffet in the Kroger Plaza on Schrock and State) Sam and I talked about hanging out at the New Pier in Galena and writing from there. After driving up Sunbury Road by my favorite body of water, we turned down a small u-loop street where there was a teeny community park. Carefully navigating the car around construction-site-sized ruts in the parking lot, it wasn’t until we parked that we saw the walkway leading out onto the pier is still blocked. An eight foot tall and three feet wider-than-the-width-of-the-walk-on-both-sides expanse of chain link fence blocked anything but the most intentional trespasser. We mumbled our disappointments and wondered aloud when it might open, or if it is even finished.
The new wooden pier goes way out over the reservoir. It has to be at least 100 yards and curves around to the left and out of sight. At the moment, it doesn't look scenic from the highway. The reservoir is so low every emergent piling can be seen sticking out of the shore. The coming spring rains will change that, raising the water level until the pier is mirrored in it, really impressive for a wink of a town in Nowhere, Ohio.
I still wanted to find a way out there even though the huge chain link wall was gated and locked. In earlier days, scaling would have easily conquered it. After all, how many toeholds are in a chain link fence? And curling around the reinforced edge- well, tricky, just not impossible. Truthfully I’d be willing to risk it. But I picture myself out there, alone, imagining Samantha too afraid of falling in the water to join me or, unable to climb the fence due to a swelling conscience. How long would I actually get to enjoy it? I wouldn’t be sharing the pier with her at all, just the experience of daring to do something forbidden. She would be less inclined to follow me for the reasons I shouldn't be out there in the first place- we could get caught. How would we get caught? By Zealous, small-town cops patrolling their beat, looking for the slightest infractions like starving piranhas. Nosy neighbors with over-active imaginations and wagging tongues who diligently seek snips of gossip to wake up an otherwise sleepy town.
And in regard to getting caught- what would I say? If she did follow me, I might be charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, in addition to trespassing. It isn’t the sort of thing you could get away with saying, “Well, I didn’t know we weren’t allowed out there…” If I left my kid vulnerable, well, who knows what the rules are out here?
We could be catapulted to fame with a daring incident: An artistic stand off. There hasn’t been one since the Morse Road incident. We could make the town and our newly discovered pier a real attraction, especially if the news got involved. What would the cops do to remove us if we declined to exit? I wonder if the Parks Department would have to be called to unlock the gate? Would they force us at gunpoint to retrace our guilty actions?
In a small town your reputation is an identity. Small towns are like elephants- they never forget. Is that how I’d like to be known? Probably not the kind of attention a fifteen year old really wants.
“Oh, aren’t you and your mom the crazy ones on the pier that made the news?”
Maybe we’ll just wait until they unlock it in the spring…