Life in Quincy

Small Town USA. ©

by  Zakiah Sayeed

This is a sleepy river town. A town where people sit on the culvert by the Mississippi and throw their lines in the water, with a hope of catching some Bass or Catfish. They don’t mind the time as it ticks by, winking at them, telling them that there are stores in town where the fish are fresh, and perhaps the fishmonger would tell them how and where he actually caught them. This town has a history. Its original and first settler was John Wood who came from New York. I think that he saw this as a place where he could farm and see the other side of River Mississippi, and perhaps knew that this land would do him good.

I too came here as a settler. I lived in St. Louis for almost twelve years, when I originally came from India, and then moved up here because of work. At first I thought that this was the end of the Earth; a nothing town. I wasn’t sure if I could survive here without any other Indian family, or Muslims.  But within a year, the feeling changed. I saw the smiles in the eyes of the people. They looked at me and wanted to talk to me, to know me. My work made me recognizable and where there was fear and worry before, comfort and peace took over. We were able to leave the front doors open and never think that our privacy would be challenged. 

This is a town where you make a phone call and you realize you have dialed a wrong number instead, but the person at the other end recognizes you by your voice and starts chatting and telling you how blessed they are that you live in this town. This is a town where neighbours felt privileged to be included in your life and in the lives of your children. This is a town where, when you go to the grocery store to get a carton of milk, you end up talking to ten or twelve people for as many minutes, who want to know about your retirement or your travel or congratulating you on the accomplishments of your children.

This is a town, where if a child dies due to an accident or a disease, the whole town mourns, and cries with the parents. 

It’s a simple town. The mighty River Mississippi laps around it and around the surrounding farms. There is a train that runs through the town and its whistle always makes me smile. There is something about a town which has a whistle stop in its middle, and where people come just to say hello and goodbye to friends when they come or leave town, This is a town where, students who feel stifled with the smallness of it, leave to go away to better and richer and greener pastures and finer companies… but, in two to five years, return because they couldn’t find the love, the peace and the genuine happiness in a big city, where, you become a number, where you never meet your neighbours, and where the schools are so large that your child gets lost almost every day going to his class. These students come back as doctors and lawyers and teachers and accountants and financial advisers, and glorify this beautiful piece of heaven in the middle of the country. 

This town is my town, Quincy, Illinois.

I love to get away from here. But every single time, I return thinking, dear Lord, thank you for this little town in the middle of the most beautiful country, where the plains are endless, and our friends with their smiling eyes welcome us into their homes and hearts, and where there is always a ready smile and an outstretched hand to help. I look back and think of the time when I first came here, wondering if I would last a year in this little town. That was in 1978, and 43 years later, I keep thinking of the roots I have developed here, and oh, how deep and strong the new generations have adjusted to the shades of those rooted saplings.