So after having spent the last four years of my life here, I’ve heard plenty of gripes and complaints about the lack of things to do in Martin. However, you should consider yourself lucky. There are much worse places you could be.

After going to watch The Covenant on Friday night, I came to appreciate how happy I was to be living in Martin. I come from a town that just recently got a red light---yes, that’s one---and whose only form of entertainment comes in the form of a drive-in movie theatre that’s only open during the summer. Even then, most people don’t go to watch the movie. And if you do, make sure it’s not a good one. You won’t hear much over the other voices coming in through your car windows, and forget seeing anything on a rainy night. If I had wanted to see The Covenant back home, I would have had to drive at least 45 minutes to get to a ‘real’ movie theatre.

Martin has a movie theatre. Martin also has a Wal-Mart. My hometown doesn’t have a Wal-Mart, period, much less a supercenter. When you’re hungry, you have your choice of Taco Bell, Burger King, Long John Silver’s, McDonald’s, KFC or Sonic. Back home? McDonald’s. In fact, when my fiance first visited me, he kept asking where the Burger King was, and thought I was joking when I said we didn’t have one.

What about the nightlife? It’s non-existent. Our idea of a ‘night out on the town’ consisted of hanging out with your friends on the town square, or at McDonald’s or Sonic. Again, if you wanted to do anything ‘fun’, you drove a good 45 minutes. Or if you were really looking for a good time, we drove to Nashville and hoped we could find a friend or family member to crash with so we wouldn’t have to drive the hour or so back home at three o’clock in the morning.

The first time I went into the Stables to listen to a live band, I felt like I was in heaven. And after I had made a good amount of friends, we spent every weekend at Cheers, dancing like idiots. Again, I thought I had finally moved up in the world. I had finally found a place where I didn’t have to waste a whole tank of gas to go have some measure of fun.

So it was a surprise to me to hear people complaining about Martin. Martin? Boring? Where were these people from?? Of course, when I realized that not everyone was from a tiny town like I was, I understood why some people could find Martin a boring little town.

However, this has still always bothered me, so now I’m going to take the opportunity to show you how great a town Martin really is. So just remember one thing. The next time it’s a Friday night and your complaining about having nothing to do, it could be worse. You could be stuck in your house watching reruns of the X-Files until three o’clock in the morning with your parents snoring in the bedroom. Ah, how I miss those good ole days.