One of the great things about living in small towns like South
Pittsburg, Tennessee (or Jasper, or Whitwell, or Griffith Creek, or any
of a dozen little communities scattered through the mountain valleys
just west of Chattanooga) is how involved people become in the
day-to-day lives of everybody else. Everybody seems willing to share
themselves with others. Here at Sequatchie Valley Head Start, we’d like
to note the small-town friendliness of Danny Mankin who runs the Opera
House, a music store in downtown South Pittsburg.
Recently, when our Head Start children in South
Pittsburg were studying music, he welcomed a whole classroom of them
into his shop. There, with a bunch of three- and four-year-olds
gathered happily and curiously around him, he showed them pianos and
guitars and mandolins and violins and other instruments he has
available. He played them for the children, too. He even explained the
difference between a violin and a fiddle which, apparently, lies in how
they are played. (I never knew that … did you?)
Here’s a picture of Danny and the children. We at Head Start like to
think of it as a picture of everything that’s right about small-town America in the 21st century.