May 7, 1986 3:42 AM

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May 7, 1986 3:42 AM

     Some towns get known and some towns get forgotten. It isn't all gravy for the towns that get known, though. Sometimes they get known for the wrong reasons, and they wish just as soon as they got known to become forgotten again.

     Fidello is a forgotten town, but it wishes it was known. Little girls wish they were known for their voices and style; little boys for their speed and passing ability. Hobbyists for their fine art and crafts. Some gentlemen for their style and panache; some women for their extensive knowledge of the workings of cars. People dream in their head that the things they do will some day make them famous, and the town they came from if they do will always live in fame.

     Of course, in the act of doing things they think they should do, well, sometimes they end up doing things they shouldn't. Sometimes to get where they think they want to go, they rob, they cheat, they outright steal, hit, abuse, cajole, and, even, outright murder to get their way--to finish what they think they've started and make their way in the world. Becoming famous is all-consuming and that means becoming infamous.

     And everybody that ever learns about either the famous or the infamous is going to learn about them, where they came from. That city or that town is going to be put on the map. 

     But just because you did something that should become well known doesn't mean your going to become famous or infamous. No, the timing has to be right for the discovery. And even if the world has followed from the feat, well, unless you get the credit for it, no one is going to remember you. No, they're going to forget you ever existed, and they're going to remember someone else in your place. Not because they were there first, but because they were there at the right time.

     And your town is not going to become well known, as the birthplace of you and whatever you did. Nope, it'll just be another town, unless it's known for someone else.

     There are just too many places for all of them to be well-known for something. Some towns must be forgotten. And Fidello, yes, Fidello was one of them. In the town was fired for the first salvo in a war that is still going on for the country, and yet the name is not famous and the soldiers that fired the shots not well-known.

     Isn't that something?