Nevada: Still Got It

In 1995 some guy named Norman Crampton published a book about the top 100 small towns in the United States. His criteria for rating the towns included things like: the quality of schools and hospitals, per capita income, downtown commerce, recreational facilities, education of the population, tax levels, and the cost of home ownership.

Extra points were awarded if you were a county seat (take THAT Ames!).

In 1995 Norman Crampton listed Nevada, IA as #26 on his comprehensive, definitive list. Predictably, the town went completely ape shit. Assemblies were held, tee shirts printed ("26 is #1!"), explanatory papers assigned, and the #26 basketball jersey, formerly ignored, was now hotly contested athletic apparel.

What's that? Incredulous parents would say, the 26th best small town in the state of Iowa?

No you idiots, the children would reply, offended and indignant. We are officially the 26th best small town in the NATION. All the data is in, all relevant factors have been weighed by impartial judges; the results have arrived and we are #26. This is practically scientific.

And until a few days ago, I had thought that it was all over. That all that remained of Nevada's storied heyday were my own dim memories, a few threadbare tee shirts, and around 300 copies of Mr. Crampton's book collecting dust in the Nevada Public Library.

Which is why I was relieved to find out that this isn't even remotely the case.

The other day my mother was going through old clippings and files and handed me an article about a war protest that she had organized in Nevada. My eyes immediately drifted to this headline in the column to the right: "Nevada: Still listed among best small towns" (pictured above). (For a more humorous reading, please note the delicious juxtaposition of the headline immediately to the left: "Residence searched for meth lab").

Apparently, 7 years later, Mr. Crampton released another book and, once again, Nevada made the list. It's kind of a downer because he just published a list of 120 towns, in no particular order, so we don't know if we've moved up or down on the Cramptometer. All we know is that, according to at least one person in the nation, we are among the 120 best small towns in America.

Also noteworthy are the four other Iowa towns that made the top 120: Decorah (one of the prettier towns in Iowa), Grinnell (happy home of the most liberal campus in the world), Spencer (always on these kinds of lists), and Washington (I hear it has a cool fountain).

Until the next book I'll just be keeping myself busy printing up some new tee shirts. I feel like "A figure between 1 and 120 is #1" has a kind of nice ring to it.

Call me if you'd like to place an order.