（1）For my sons there is of course the rural bounty of fresh-grown vegetables，line-caught fish and the shared riches of neighbours' orchards and gardens（2）There is the unpaid baby-sitter for whose children my daughter-in-law baby-sits in return and neighbours who barter their skills and labour.（3）But more than that，how do you measure serenity？Sense of self?
（4）I don't want to idealize life in small places.（5）There are times when the outside world intrudes brutally，as when the cost of gasoline goes up or developers cast their eyes on untouched farmland．（6）There are cruelties，there is intolerance，there are all the many vices and meanness in small places that exist in large cities.（7）Furthermore，it is harder to ignore them when they cannotbe banished psychologically to another part of town or excused as the whims of alien groups-when they have to be acknowledged as“part of us.”