Food is what brings people together. Think about the upcoming holidays, a time to gather around the table and eat. We can all think back to a time of food, fun, and family or friends gathering to eat. Most likely the center of the plate was poultry, but who is counting? These memories spark moments of laughter, happiness, and when asked, I am sure we can all remember the food at the table: a pie (for me it’s pecan or pumpkin loaded with whipped cream) or those creamy mashed potatoes or the large turkey or maybe ham. I always remember the bacon too – bacon and turkey go hand in hand at my house. Anyway, my point is that food always brings people closer together. It's hard to fight over the table when family and friends are around.

As y’all know, I live in a very small community where we have one gas station, no stop lights and one other business. Everything else on main street closed many years ago, leaving empty buildings. Most recently our only restaurant for several miles, The Chief, closed. The owners had owned and operate it for two generations and just could not do it anymore. In addition, there is very little labor around, as our own industry is also experiencing.

Since The Chief has closed, our town feels more divided and segregated. As we are all experiencing, our entire country is more divided today politically and socially. We can argue with each other about nothing at the drop of a hat. I wonder how much the closing of our only restaurant has impacted our small-town social behavior.

We used to all meet at The Chief at some point during the day or week for breakfast, lunch or dinner on the weekends. It was a small place, probably a dozen tables, so it was difficult to avoid anyone. If you didn’t like someone, you were going to see them anyway and most probably had to walk by them to get to the bathroom or get out the door. There was usually some kind of grumbling about how unfair XYZ was or gossip about something that happened over the weekend. My husband is the town supervisor (like a mayor) and he always had the “I think we should...” discussions while I ate my pancakes and drank my coffee. It was a go-to place – it was the only go-to place for miles.

This year, it was closed. We didn’t have the face-to-face interaction, we didn’t get to vent our grumblings, and we weren’t in a situation where we had to see and address people we liked or didn’t like so much. Do I think this impacted out ability to get along and address the concerns of this town? Yes! We lost the ability to have food as our distraction from the negativity. We lost our glue. We have become more divided as a town.

My observation is strictly that – an observation. But I did bring it up to several people this week and just asked the question – how has the closing of The Chief impacted this town? One hundred percent of the respondents (n=12) said, “It has negatively divided us” or a version of that statement. I am not a social scientist; I am not conducting a social experiment. These are just my thoughts. But I do believe that when we don’t have a general gathering space with food to unite us, we lose the ability to discuss, compromise, disagree, and still remain friends.

My solution is eat more chicken, turkey, bacon, and eggs — and that includes everything that incorporates eggs (pies, cakes, cookies, etc). Invite the community (not just friends) over and just chat. Happy fall y’all!

My nonscientific social experiment

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