I jogged into the business district that straddles the highway, past the “Welcome to Lebanon” sign emblazoned with the logos of all the local lodges—Kiwanis, Moose, VFW, Masons, and so on.
Behind that loom the two towers—water, not Tolkien. The old one is a metallic four-legged oil-can, used mostly as a cell tower now; the new is a huge white drumstick proclaiming “Lebanon” to the world in big black letters.
Directly below and between them, a dilapidated red-sided barn with a roofless silo reminds you of the area’s not-so-distant agricultural past.
The Shell, Exxon, Mobil, and Sunoco stations are clustered south of the interstate. And just north of it, two shopping centers face off across 206.
Carbon monoxide wafted from the interstate as I cut under the overpass and through the deserted Ames parking lot to the low-rent residential district beyond.
Lebanon is a Baltimore bedroom community; only a dozen miles west of the beltway, but light years away in culture and sophistication.
If you don’t drive a pickup here—even most of the rich hillsiders own one—you drive a Chevy suburban. On the whole these folks are good, solid, salt-of-the-earth types, but the town still has its share of the drug, alcohol, and domestic-violence problems plaguing every community.
Your socioeconomic status in Lebanon is relative to latitude and altitude. The further up you live in the hills north of the freeway, the higher your income. The folks with more modest paychecks live in the flat country on the south. Beyond that it’s all farmland. Hill and dale.
Our practice treats more south-side people—sometimes called “dale-dwellers”—than “hillsiders.” I guess that’s because a lot of the well-to-do feel they’re too good for a primary care doc. If they have a sinus problem they go to an ENT specialist; for an upset stomach, it’s a gastroenterologist. And God forbid they’d see a local specialist. Only someone in Baltimore—which we natives pronounce “Bal’more”—will do.
But when they wind up in the CCCH emergency room with chest pains or a broken bone, guess who’s there for them?
I passed some early birds heading for the highway and their jobs in Baltimore. A few of them recognized me and waved. A homey, friendly place, Lebanon.
I really do want to stay here.