By Freelance Writer and Books Author Denise Turney
Small town secrets grow like uncontrollable weeds. Their sting is as painful as gossip, yet worse. Unlike gossip, these secrets have a deep, dangerous root. Sexual crimes committed by a star athlete, the whereabouts of a missing person and the deception that a woman is a child’s aunt when she’s actually the child’s mother – those are but a few misplaced confidences with lasting impact.
Small Towns with Old Histories
Other real life skeletons people living in small towns, especially towns with old histories, work hard to keep hidden have affected hundreds of children and adults. Danger associated with these mysteries is what drives people to keep them hidden. If you grew up in a small town that’s known for keeping events in the dark, a few of these mysteries might sound familiar:
- College hazing that went too far, causing the death of a student, but no one going to trial because the death was ruled an accident and the crime was never properly investigated
- Neighbor installing hidden camera in a home then using taped information to blackmail the homeowner for acts as simple as showering, relieving themselves and making out with a town schoolteacher
- Corruption that stems back two or more generations, putting dishonest law enforcement and other government officials in place to keep the corruption going
- Drugs taking over an entire town, destroying families and businesses while community leaders do nothing to stop the drug infiltration because they’re receiving kickbacks from dealers
- A handful of business owners meeting and deciding which new businesses will open in the town, cooking up reasons to disallow the strongest competitors from setting up shop
- Two married people have a lengthy affair, creating a child from the relationship, only to lie to the child about his real parents, not once telling their son their biological connection to him. People who know about the affair and who the child’s real parents are, never tell the child, not even after the child reaches adulthood.
Shocking Small Town Secrets
It’s these types of secrets that get the wrong men and women arrested, that leave children with more questions than answers and that prevent real growth from happening to the town. Believe it or not, some small town secrets are more outlandish and traumatic than those unearthed in large cities.
The real shocker is that small towns with big secrets can look “perfect” from the outside. Everybody knows everybody. Instead of passing one another on the sidewalk without speaking while out shopping, townsfolk stop, wave and chat with each other awhile.
If you didn’t know better, the entire town would look and feel like one big, happy family. Stay in the place long enough and you start to notice relationships and events that are off, that just don’t feel right. You spot a prominent business owner entering a hotel at the edge of town with a minister’s wife only to tell his own wife that he and the minister’s wife are mapping out the details of the summer’s vacation Bible school.
Everyone Knows What You Keep Lying About
Everyone in town knows the businessman rarely goes to church, but no one questions the lie. The chance to live in a place where wrong, particularly seemingly unforgiveable wrongs, don’t occur seems like sufficient motivation to lie, deny the facts and support tragic secrets.
At their worse, small town secrets can conceal a murder. Destroyed evidence, bribes paid to a coroner and a judge and threats made to those seeking the truth, can do more than hide facts. Acts like these can ensure that the wrong man goes to prison.
But why do people tell lies or keep secrets, especially dangerous hidden facts? Desire to mask their own indiscretions is a primary reason. Fear of retaliation from powerful people is another.
Together these two can create a web that’s hard to get untangled from. Greasy Plank in Memphis, Tennessee is a town of secrets, dark mysteries. Religion won’t save Greasy Plank residents.
Break Free
If you grew up keeping secrets, it might be time to break free. Doing so can release positive energy, allowing you to start and finish work you’ve wanted to do for years, but never seemed to find the strength to get to.
Here are more rewards associated with letting small town secrets go, float away like rocks moving down river:
- Restored relationships with people wrongly suspected of crimes
- Freedom from unforgiveness
- Independence from resentment and suspicion
- Healing from trauma
- Innocent children and adults regaining their honor
And most of all, wrongs finally made right. Oh, and another advantage. You can sleep at night, your mind lighter from no longer having to carry heavy secrets. Tammy Tilson in Spiral fights for these rewards, for herself and her family, but she has a lot to lose if she tells what she knows.
Her choice to keep small town secrets has a very high price. Yet, that’s the way it goes when you try to hide the truth. Should you be keeping secrets, especially from yourself, consider the weight you’re carrying. See if you can find a way into the light of the truth. You might be able to do it in a way that frees up more people than you know without causing more trauma, more harm.
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