I have always dreamed of living in small town America.

But in the small town, of my dreams, there was always a town square where everybody gathered, and everybody you passed on that street knew your name.

“Hey, Joe, how’s that new baby?”

“Hey Mary, saw your mama today in the grocery store, man she really looks good. How are you and the girls?”

And though that’s not the small town America I’ve landed in, I have made it to one. I’ve landed in small town America in the middle of a resort town.

I live a short bike ride from someone I’ve known for more than 35 years, Nancy Ward, and another great friend I’ve known more than 20 years, Kayvon Butler. If at some point in your life you meet people as good as these two ladies, consider yourself lucky. You will not meet any better.

I have the best neighbors I’ve ever had in my life: Janice and Billy Mason and Janice and David Hastings. I know just about everybody on my street, even though most are part-time neighbors — like the Hastings and Billy and Patty King. But we interact. We share; we help each other.

Bernard Barnes works at the Winn Dixie though he’s twice retired and doesn’t have to work at all. His wife’s sister, Glenda Lee, lives across the street and is an accomplished artist. The sisters’ mother, Lula Mae Collins, who lived with the Barneses, recently died at age 100. You can see Glenda’s husband, Wade, walking their dog just about any time.

Billy Mason, a retired law enforcement officer, has the keys to almost any house on the street. And he cuts all the lawns of all the people who are “part-timers.” If you try to pay him for it — well, just duck.

“You going to bingo with us on Thursday at Bear Point?”

“No, but please keep asking us. We’d love to go, but we got a Packer party to go to.”

Thursday night bingo, each week at the Bear Point community center, is something I plan to do.

Packer party? My new found friends, Jen McCaskey and Pam McDonald, are big-time Packer fans and northern transplants. I’m not a big fan of NFL football, but a casual follower. One of the teams I happen to like, among others, are the Packers. Well, until now. I’m a Packer fan!

Them? They’re now ‘Bama fans. On Saturday, we all get together and wear red and white. On Sunday, we all get together and wear green and gold, and have a party, of course.

Small town — Orange Beach people getting together to watch a little football.

And I see Cindy Mareno Trainor almost everywhere I go. Not only was her older brother (much, much, much, much older, by her recollection) and I friends from grade school through high school, our grandparents’ houses were less than a block from each other in the good old small town days of Wylam, a section of Birmingham. Cindy’s momma and my daddy grew up together.

Cindy and I never knew of this until we met in Orange Beach.

Our fire chief, Shane Phillips? He grew up in the fire halls of Hoover, Ala., where his dad was a firefighter. Shane was in the youth program within the Hoover Fire Department. 

The fire chief in Hoover? My dad’s first cousin, Tom Bradley, was Hoover’s first full-time fire chief, serving from 1976 to 2009 and a 60-year fire service veteran. At some point in your life, I hope you meet someone as good as Tom Bradley. You will not meet anyone better.

While I don’t stroll around a courthouse square and greet and tip my hat to people, we greet people and tip our hats to each other every day in a myriad of ways.

From, “Hey John, happy (insert day here). that’s the greeting I always get from Bradford Reilly at Doc’s Seafood Shack in Orange Beach. Manager Cindy Holden greets me and my wife for lunch: “It must be Thursday!” Thursday is stewed cabbage day. My wife loves stewed cabbage.

I’ve never lived in a town where I call the mayor “Tony.” I’ve never known the mayor in any town I’ve ever lived in. You’re bound to see Tony Kennon anywhere from an Easter egg hunt to locals’ night at an Orange Beach restaurant in the off season.

I’ll cap it with this. I wrote a story recently about a 92-year-old World War II veteran who needs no introduction, Ty Fleming Sr. This is a story you cannot screw up. Burma, India, China, British royalty, wrote a book on his experience, stellar citizen, the works. 

I promised him I’d get him copies after the story ran. Well, I was a little tardy in my duties on that one. He called the office.

Our office manager, Carolyn Dugger, as sweet and efficient lady as you’ll ever meet, emailed me with his concerns about my tardiness.

On Friday, I showed up at his “Old Wagon Wheel” store on Canal Road to deliver extra copies of the paper with the story. Mr. Ty was busying himself with getting the store open for his Friday-Saturday open days.

“I’m too busy to be open any more than two days.”

After the most pleasant chat, he dismissed me with, “I’ve got to get my hammer and put up my yard sale signs. I might sell something today.”

Taking my leave, I drove across the back grass of the store thinking, “When/if I’m 92, I hope I know what a hammer is, much less know how to use one.”

And then I was off to Happy Harbor on Marina Road. Where everybody knows my name.

John Mullen is news director of The Islander newspaper.