Small Towns

by Liam Stone from Cat Trick, coming February 5^th, Book 4 in the Magical Cats Mysteries by Sofie Kelly.

Mayville Heights, Minnesota. Most people have never heard of the place, which is a real shame because this is small town living at its best. So a group of us got together, and came up with the idea to pitch the town as a fall tour destination, somewhere for over-worked business people to get away and relax.

We have the waterfront. We have the park at Wild Rose Bluff with some of the best hiking trails in the state. It’s beautiful when the leaves change. And food in town runs the gamut from the best in home-cooked, small-town diner fare, to gourmet meals made with locally grown, organic ingredients.

We planned a food tasting and an art show to showcase some of what Mayville Heights has to offer. We settled on Legacy Tours for our pitch. They specialize in putting together escape packages for companies and executives. They’re a small company, but they deal with several Fortune 500 corporations. And it didn’t hurt that one of their partners, Mike Glazer, is originally from Mayville Heights.

The thing is, Mike seems to have forgotten where he came from. You know that old saying, “You can take the boy out of the small town, but you can’t take the small town out of the boy?” Well, he pretty much proves that one isn’t true. The guy’s a snob and a jerk. He told Georgia Tepper who runs Sweet Things, the cupcake bakery, that chocolate is “last year.” He wanted her to make some kind of fancy cupcake with peanut butter and jalapeno peppers.

He even got into it with Burtis Chapman over the tents where we’re going to have the tasting. Burtis is not a man you want to be on the wrong side of.  Finally, I had enough. I told Mike to forget it. The pitch was off and we’d find some other company to work with. He didn’t take it well and things got a little out of hand. I told him to leave because if he didn’t, the next time I saw him I might forget what the brakes on my truck are for.

I’m thinking I probably shouldn’t have said that.