Pros: A community that pulls together for each other, Perry's humor, Heart-tugging stories
Cons: Wasn't long enough (Hopefully Truck a Love Story offers more)
The Bottom Line: Anyone who moves to a small town and hesitates on joining the VFD needs to read this moving story, everyone else should read this because it's excellent.
pestyside's Full Review: Michael Perry - Population:485: Meeting Your Neigh...
Sometimes it is said a journey home, back to the town that formed you and provided structure for the bones that support your character, is the most real trip you ever make. Michael Perry returned to the small Wisconsin village of his youth after once rejecting it. Over his first six years or so after returning he experienced his sense of discovery of self and place. He has somehow found himself in this little ragtag village, fully immersed in its events, and the thought occurred to him “that to truly live in a place, you must give your life to that place. It is a dynamic commitment, but it is also a manifestation of stillness.”
Population: 485 Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time filled my heart with Michael Perry’s thoughtful observations. This small book, written by a humorist, was intended to be read (my original thought) for laughter and light-hearted jabs at small towns, especially since we’ve recently moved from a small Midwest town. I was prepared for studies of small town foolishness and idiosyncrasies. While some of that happened I was mostly impressed with how he provided a hauntingly sensitive look at how everyone pulls together when the call goes out.
In a town as small as New Auburn, Wisconsin, the fire department is an all-volunteer organization. When Perry moves back to the town of his birth, fortune has him buying a Main Street house rather than something remote, near his family’s farm. As a writer his time was more flexible than most so he became an EMT (a first responder) and joined the volunteer fire department, along with his brothers and his mother and many of his neighbors. Calls often went to homes of friends or family or people he sees nearly daily. The inevitable calls for someone where “time of death” is the final action were often for private moments and required extreme sensitivity. Perry’s Population 485 became a personal reflection for me as well as an engaging and moving story, not just of a small town but also of some intimate moments between a first responder and the patient.
Soon after we moved to a small town, a “dry” village in central Illinois, the vote went up for selling alcohol. This was not the first time, but it became the last time. In a community-wide meeting it seemed to this observer that the vote changed the day the tired VFD Fire Chief passionately stated the reasons for his support. He wasn’t approving the alcohol, he didn’t drink and couldn’t since he was on-call all the time, but he was tired of watching the grief of his fire fighters and feeling his own sorrow each time they responded to a late-night accident on the local roads. All too often they had to pry a neighbor’s child or parent out of a crushed car. That person either had one too many, or the cause of the accident was the other driver (generally a neighbor) had had several too many. He wanted residents to buy alcohol (in a store or restaurant) close to home rather than 15 or so miles away. Perry eloquently describes a variety of situations where he and a team of other dedicated volunteers rush out to answer disturbing calls.
Some are funny in a pathetic way. Some are heart-breaking and sad, while some offer great insight. With pride he tells about the history of New Auburn and the development of the volunteer fire department. He introduces us to other dedicated volunteers and we understand how the unlikely friendships form life-saving teams the moment the alarm sounds. It is the commitment to the community and sense of responsibility that has these “heroes” responding, regardless of the weather, personal schedules, or time of day.
Perry tells about New Auburn through his experience with the volunteer department. It’s a collection of tales all woven together and it reads as a humorous and poignant story; his memoir is also a tribute to the town’s volunteer fire department as well as those everywhere. This is divided into slightly thematic chapters with the first providing a reason for volunteering and also for re-bonding with New Auburn. He crafts these stories with great background and insight and fills the pages with memorable characters who will forever alter my reactions to small-town fire department volunteers. They quickly turn off their antics and become professional when called. My original expectation was to enjoy his humor, but what I discovered was an exceptionally talented author capable of touching my every emotion. There were moments of honest humor that I couldn’t wait to share, but these were outdone by reflections of deep pain and sorrow that had me sharing only if someone noticed my tears.
Population 485 introduces us to the character of VFD volunteers and their challenges. One heart-breaking incident pulls the entire town together in a way you never witness in large urban communities; it displayed the “price and comfort of living in a small town.” The chapter “Oops” is gratefully well placed following soon after the chapter “Death.” After reading the two I have little doubt about Perry’s ability to touch all emotions with his writing style. While Death ran a few chills and a sense of awe through my senses, Oops had me laughing at his self-deprecating humor and memories of some of his companion’s sillier moments. It was hysterically funny.
"Three years ago Tee Norman roared off to a fire in Pumper One, ineplicably failing to observe that all the equipment doors--which open up and out like wings--were open. Peeled them all off on the garage-door frame. Dames in the four figures, easy."
He also challenges our vocabulary. I was warned I might not enjoy his style, that he tended to be somewhat rural, but what I found was a surprisingly talented writer and wordsmith who was fully capable of turning some amazingly articulate (that includes colorful) phrases.
New Auburn is a small town that cares and shares – they even the sewer rod. It’s a small town that knows everything about everyone but still provides residents personal space. It’s a town that watches out for each other knowing that is a reciprocal relationship. While this was fun to read, this was also reflective and intimate as you would expect when Perry is literally re-meeting old friends and new neighbors “one siren at a time,” moments that are never the best of times. Michael Perry has gained one more fan with his Population 485 and I will be eager to follow this up with the book that immediately follows this, Truck A Love Story, but also with Off Main Street: Barnstormers, Prophets & Gatemouth’s Gator.
After a 12-year absence, a real-life prodigal seeks to serve his hometown, New Auburn, Wisconsin, population: 485, by joining the volunteer fire and r...More at Audible.com
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