The town I live in is small. Twenty five roads, a couple of stop signs. It does include an elementary school, high school and college. But the only grocery store, which was run by my uncle, closed decades ago. It was fun to wander in after school and buy things on our tab. No money, no i.d., just my face. 

We do have a police station, though the crime rate is low. So low that the other day when a lone rooster showed up near the rail road tracks the officer on duty called me at home to ask if it was mine. It wasn't. 

I was driving down the street this week when I noticed a basket of ripe, organic tomatoes in front of a gardener's house. It had a sign. 

"Free"

There is no home delivery so everyone congregates at the post office to collect their mail. Some summers there were bakers who showed up with sticky buns on Saturday mornings, so that you could bite into cinnamon and sugar while chatting with your neighbors. 

A man posted on social media that he needs rides to chemo this week. Within minutes all of the slots were taken. 

There are ways to be involved on a global level. I can and should call my congressman, whom I have never met, and express my concern about the Dakota Pipeline, which I will never visit. It is fitting that I should vote in the election, a right that my mother held sacred. But the names on the ballots are of people I will never speak to, kindly or ill. 

The vast majority of my daily stabs at integrity play out in a smaller circle, and the main characters are the ones who know me by name.