It's a great place to call home

It's a great place to call home. Dripping Springs Texas is a sleepy little town just outside of Austin. Moving here, for me, was like taking a step back in time to my childhood. I grew up in a small Midwest town where everybody new your name, parents watched out for each others kids and everyone went to church on Sunday.

I grew up and moved away to the big city and became a cop. Eventually I married a young woman who worked as a social worker doing child abuse prevention. Let's just say we both saw the darker side of humanity. As nature took its course we came to have our own children. Knowing what we knew about the society we lived in we worried about our children's safety and began researching towns across the country to relocate to.  We had 3 criteria. First we wanted a location that still believed in family values and a sense of community, second we wanted a temperate climate and third we needed a strong economy.

We took several trips around the country and then one day found ourselves in Dripping Springs Texas. As we drove the towns "main street" we joked about the banners hanging over the road advertising the annual chili cook off. I had to stop and pump gas into my rental car and as I walked to the counter to pay, I nearly bumped into a clean cut young man of about 16 and was shocked when he said "excuse me sir I didn't see you". I think it was then that I started to realize we may have found what we were looking for. I think what sealed the deal for us was when by chance we found ourselves outside of Dripping Springs sole high school as it was letting out for the day. We watched in amazement as student after student exited the school with a their pants pulled up to their waste, the boys with their hair cut to collar length, the girls with a lack of facial piercings and the predominant color of their clothes was something other than Black. If my memory serves me it was a mix of University of Texas burnt orange and Dripping Springs Maroon.

That was 3 years ago. We have since come to call Dripping Springs home. There are still several times a year when I have to pinch myself to remind me that we really live here. Sometimes it's at the 4^th of July fireworks with the VFW band playing, the kids are running around with sparklers and the local chamber of commerce is passing out ice cold watermelon slices or at the founders day parade when half of the town is in the parade and the other half is there cheering them on. If it sounds like we live in a Norman Rockwell painting it's because we do. Like I said before, it's a great place to call home.