A Small Town

CHAPTER ONE\ PRIMACY

The town of Primacy Ontario is not on any maps and that is just the way the residents like it. It's a good town... full of good people.

The town is located in Magnetawan Township northeast of Parry Sound on Nipissing Road. The people of Primacy don't mix with outsiders, that's just how it is. The Simpson sawmill was the towns main source of employment until it closed in 1913. They have a general store and old Kout's gas station. There's a small hotel run by Alistar Gold that almost never has a booking, a bar call the Woodsman where the menfolk congregate, a bookstore called Paige Turners (a little pun that makes no sense since old Paige has been in her grave for thirteen years and now her daughter Lisa runs the place) and an ancient blacksmiths that still churns out the odd farm implement or saw blade. 

Doc Hawthorne is the local quack, most of his medical knowledge comes from the 1940's but he gets by with a little help from his wife Mary. Primacy Elementary is still standing, even though all of the children in town are now homeschooled. The Catholic Church is boarded up, as is the town hall due to lack of use. Folks get their water from private wells, heat their little cabins with woodburning stoves and there is no electricity.

Bedtime is nine o'clock. No exceptions.

Cars pass through the town now and then and, as long as they don't linger, there's no trouble. Ed Walters drives the big fuel tanker into town once or twice a year to fill the reservoir under Kout's gas station and leaves as quickly as he can, but he's an exception. He grew up in Primacy... he knows the rules.

Primacy is a town lost in time. The little boys wear knickerbockers and Flat caps. As soon as they can walk they work the field. For fun, they climb trees and go fishing. The little girls wear dresses and ribbons in their hair. They have tea parties and help mother in the kitchen. They never speak unless spoken to. Children should be seen an not heard after all. None of the children of Primacy has ever watched television or played a video game. They don't even know what those things are. What they do know is their ABC's and 123's but more importantly, they know how to grow corn and milk cows. They know how to live off of the land and be thankful.

They know what happens if they do wrong, they know that best of all.

At the centre of town, there is a wishing well. Every year Joe Haskins paints the little white uprights that hold the little white roof that covers the wishing well. He paints the edges of the roof and checks to make sure that the shingles are all in good order. It's over three hundred years old and there is no water in the well anymore but it looks brand new. When Joe dies, his son Joe Jr. Will take over painting the well and everyone knows it.

When Reverend Peters boarded up the church he didn't leave Primacy. He could never leave Primacy. He still ministers his flock, but his old leather-bound Bible is hidden under a floorboard in his room in the rectory and he hasn't read it for over ten years.

The people of Primacy mind their business and look after each other. If someone says the wrong thing, they will be told. If someone does the wrong thing they will be punished. If someone tries to leave they will be persuaded to stay.

That's the way it is... It's a good town... full of good people.