ENGL 130 Hometown Essay Complete

Small Town Service

As you drive up Highway 99 headed for Redding one night, you notice on your navigation system that you should be passing through a town called Red Bluff. If that is true, where are the lights? Where are the cars? The highway has only one lane in each direction as it enters the city. Can this be called a highway? For that matter, can this be called a city? Ah, there are the lights. On the side of the street sits a gas station with several pumps, then another, and another. Still, it’s only a few hours past dark and there are no cars on the road. You plod onward through the thick silence. How far is it to Redding? Another thirty miles. You stop for gas. The station is closed, so you use your credit card and fill up before anyone else has a chance to stop here. Back on the road, you look for signs to Interstate 5 North. As you pass McDonald’s, you see it ahead on the right. You enter the freeway and then see something hugely bright ahead. A Ford dealership signals the end of Red Bluff, its lights envying only Las Vegas in their luminescence. As you pass it, you make your escape. For you, like most people, Red Bluff is just a stop along the way; but for 13,147 people, this is home (Red Bluff, CA).

When compared with most cities, Red Bluff is small. This is shown in its population as well as its structure. There are no tall buildings or malls or universities, because none are required. Shasta College, a local community college, has a branch in Red Bluff for the students who want to stay close to home or want to try out a few things before deciding on a major course of study. High school students either go to Red Bluff, the public school, or Mercy, the private school. These students come from all around, as Red Bluff High School draws students from an area of almost 2,000 square miles (Where is Red Bluff?). Students who live in Red Bluff seem to have reached the consensus that there is nothing to do there, and like to spend their time in nearby cities seeking entertainment. They have a valid point. Nearly everything of interest to young people in Red Bluff is on a stretch of Main Street less than a mile long. These main attractions include, and are severely limited to: a bowling alley with miniature golf, a run-down movie theater, a skate park, and Wal-Mart. Yes, in this area of low entertainment, Wal-Mart has been upgraded from a store to a hangout.

Despite these sad substitute diversions, there are still at least two reasons per year for a male Red Bluff High School student to rent a tuxedo. To keep down cost and confusion, both events always fall on the same weekend. The events are the Chemistry Affair and the Winter Formal dance. I have participated in each of these, both as a fun loving student, and as a volunteer in the setup process. I have found that they are worth the hassle of the tux, even if it’s only to see how good you look. Although these are the only black-tie affairs of the year, they are certainly not the only events available that need volunteers. In high school, the CSF club of which I was a member arranges to set up many of the events. This helps students learn what it’s like to volunteer, and is a good way to get to know your classmates and your community.

Growing up in Red Bluff, I was involved in volunteer even before high school. My parents would participate in events like the pancake breakfast, or the Dairyville Orchard Festival, and as soon as I was old enough I also participated. By doing this, I became well known in my community, especially among the older people. This actually became almost scary as I grew older, because people would see me around and ask me how school was going, without me having any idea who they were. But it also offered me opportunities, such as when the annual Dairyville Community Club scholarship came up and I was awarded the highest amount. Since I had worked with all the people who decided on the scholarships, they knew I was deserving. This is the type of opportunity that presents itself more easily in small towns like Red Bluff.

Because Red Bluff is little, a higher percentage of the people who live there have volunteered. It’s really easy to volunteer in high school, as there are a few clubs dedicated to helping others work. The CSF club doesn’t just set up for events, but also has an ongoing tutoring program which I was a part of. I was able to help other students mostly in math, and so their grades went up, the school benefited, and I was able to help a friend and learn techniques that help for teaching. After that experience, I tutored other people from home and also used the techniques in a customer service job. The skills I got from volunteering as a tutor will continue to help me in college too, as study skills.

One of the students I tutored in math in high school was my friend Tori. She was also a member in the marching band with me. Through these channels, she has seen me participate in community service and has noticed things about me that relate to Red Bluff. When I asked her to talk about Red Bluff and how she thought it affected me and my life, one of the items she mentioned was “It takes a bunch of individuals working together to create a sense of community (Hickok, Tori).” For instance, on Memorial Day, we could volunteer through the band to go to the cemetery to put up poles and raise full size American flags all over the place. This creates a very regal and patriotic look throughout the grounds of the cemetery, and I’m sure the people visiting that day feel proud of their relatives who were veterans of our wars. I know I do, when I see my cousin’s grave. He was a Marine and a veteran of Operation Desert Storm in the early 1990’s. It makes us as volunteers more down to earth, to do something that brings honor to so great an act. Tori says that one of the qualities that I have gained from my experiences in Red Bluff is becoming more down to earth.

As I interviewed her, we drove on through fields of trees and flowers and Tori pointed out one orchard to me, mentioning how plentiful the yellow flowers were. I said, “Yeah, look at all those mustard flowers in that prune orchard.” She was surprised that I knew the name of both the plant and the tree, and that I also knew what kinds of birds flew by, and whether that strange sound we heard was a raccoon or not. I learned most of these things from growing up on a farm. I learned the different types of trees from my dad, a farmer, and the flowers and birds from my mom, a nature lover. The raccoon was just a good guess. But if I had grown up anywhere else, it is not likely that I would have been on a farm, and I wouldn’t have such an interest in nature. I wouldn’t be able to point out things that a layperson wouldn’t see. Growing up in the city wouldn’t have offered opportunities every day to see new plants and birds without having to go out of my way to find them.

But just growing up on a farm isn’t enough to make me to want to tell Tori all the things I see. I want her to know what I know, because I like the knowledge to spread. The tutoring program that we had in school was something that let me be more social with people I didn’t know, and I was able to teach strangers. This experience complements knowledge, because what good is knowledge if you don’t share it? New discoveries aren’t important if only one person knows about them. Sharing knowledge through an avenue such as voluntary tutoring is an important community service that lets people learn from their peers. It creates a less intimidating environment than going to ask the teacher for individual help, and it is the kind of help I would want to seek if I were in that situation.

Sharing is really in the essence of community service. You have to take time out of your busy – or not so busy – schedule to just go out and help someone you don’t know. Share your time, and your energy, so that they don’t have to use so much of theirs. If you know you’ll be free for a weekend, but don’t have any plans, volunteering in your community is definitely a great thing to do. After doing it once, I realized that it wasn’t a burden to help others. It isn’t like a job that you have to go to, because your service can always be something different. You can work with children or senior citizens. You can paint a playground or clean off graffiti. You can plant a tree in a forest or pull weeds from the city’s flower garden. Volunteer work is as various as the people who volunteer, and in Red Bluff, it’s another one of the things that holds everyone together. The quote that I mentioned in my introduction can be applied to any location, and it doesn’t have to be a certain size to create a community. But the quote I gave is not the full citation. Tori’s full idea says, “It takes a bunch of individuals working together to create a sense of community, and Doug is one of those individuals.” This is only true in Red Bluff, and the opposite is true as well. I might have helped Red Bluff’s community, but Red Bluff has helped me become a part of its community too, and soon I hope to feel the same way about Chico.

Works Cited

1. Dairyville Community Club, Inc. Logo. 1997. Dairyville Community Club, Inc. 24 February 2008 .
2. Hickok, Tori. Personal Interview. 15 February 2008.
3. Places of Interest. City of Red Bluff Website. 24 February 2008 .
4. “Red Bluff, CA (Overview).” STI: ERsys. 29 October 2002. 7 February, 2008. .
5. “Where is Red Bluff?” 27 June, 2006. Red Bluff Union High School District. 7 February 2008. .