Gawd, I miss small towns. I knew a few before Sam Walton smeared his version of dystopia across America. But way out west, Hollywood still portrays small towns as they once were, with kids playing in the streets, diners, quirky neighbors, people on porches, and store doors that ring a bell when you arrive.

In Eau Claire, instead of a delicate bell and a cozy "How are you, Katie?" Wal-Mart makes some fellow attempt to greet every customer, with a consequent "WelcometoWal-MartWelcometoWal-MartWelcometoWal-Mart...."

Eau Claire is not an atypical small town with its row of big box stores. As in many small towns today, parents bunker their kids in their bedrooms, for fear of stranger danger, where those kids pretend to be knights-errant, playing computer games, as they grow doughy and pale.

There were days last July when walking about Eau Claire had me believing I was in a Twilight Zone episode: one of the ones where some inexplicable event has emptied the town.

Of course, there are folks in big, black SUVs, but I don't count them as people. Those folk are sealed in steel and curtained by tinted glass--removed from the casual contact that constitutes community.

Even the farmland that once cradled Eau Claire fades, as developers pave fields and top hills with oversized houses.

But there are small towns still. They are our cities and New York City is America's greatest small town. There, people still sit on stoops. Most people still walk or share trains, which places them in proximity. Corner grocery stores thrive. Kids play in the streets. In diners, soup jockeys still paint frog sticks red. (We'd say now: "Waitresses still serve French fries with ketchup.") And not only are there characters there, quirky folk that flavor a place, but in NYC, they are a near majority.

Eau Claire can reacquire what was. NYC is a city of entrepreneurs, and there are a few in Eau Claire with their one-of-a-kind shops and restaurants, where they not only deliver difference, a sandwich, bouquet, or espresso that can't be had anywhere else, but coziness. They'll remember you. You'll remember them. Memory is one key to community. Connection is another, so walk rather than drive. And refrain from removing yourself from Eau Claire. Don't serve sprawl and create conditions that increase traffic.

And don't cinch yourself in the sausage casing of your fear.

People drone: "Well, you never know anymore. You just can't trust people anymore. Things aren't the same as when we were kids."

Statistics refute such assertions. Nationwide, violent crime is at the lowest level in 45 years, and Eau Claire is one of America's statistically safest cities. And as a species, we haven't evolved in the last hundred years.

So leave your cell phone at home. Walk out and be in community, a community that extends beyond the boundaries of your family. Sit on your stoop. Nod at your neighbors. Patronize Eau Claire's entrepreneurs. Help Eau Claire to emulate America's greatest small town: New York City.