Making Life Real… the Essence of Our Community

I so enjoyed Donna Turbyfill’s "Foley: Making Life Real" writing. It reminded me of when my son and daughter-in-law first moved to Foley. They had both just left jobs at Disney World and moved to Foley so their daughter could grow up in a small coastal town, growing up with friends she went to school with. One of the first events we went to was the Foley Homecoming Parade. We had stopped for ice cream at Stacey's old time soda fountain and my granddaughter was mesmerized and full of child wonder, watching the train follow the tracks high on the wall encircling the small soda shop. As the parade approached, we went outside to watch the Foley High School band, cheerleaders, and football players turning the corner and passing in front of where we were standing. She was clapping, cheering, and dancing to the music as were all the children fortunate enough to live in the community. Though when I looked over at her mother, she had tears coming down her face. I immediately asked her what was wrong, and she said "Mom, this is REAL, isn't it?"! I didn’t quite understand, and asked what she meant. These were her profound words..."Everything at Disney is fake, but this is REAL, isn't it? Real kids, real farmers and their tractors, real kids marching in the band...real parents and educators from each Foley school coming out on a Saturday, giving of their time and energy.” She had never experienced the essence of a small community, the type that Donna so eloquently described...not with cartoon characters, but with real people...young and old smiling, interacting, and supporting all the children.

We who live in Foley, are a real community that makes real the intentional, all-inclusive love of knowing our neighbors, being able to sit outside and watch an evening sunset with our families, buying fresh foods from locals, welcoming visitors that keep coming back and multiplying because they too feel the specialness of the rhythmic soothing, life replenishing, intent remembering virtue of this coastal estuarial land. And now that we have come to see the essence of our community, we can help each other every day to remember to come from our essence…to inspirit and create ways of living and working that make life real.

Pat Armour

Foley, Alabama

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