I don’t know what else to do, so I’ve been searching Google every couple of hours for news related to Piedmont and southeast Utah. Nothing for the last couple days, but I just got an e-mail alert that led me to this traffic bulletin from Millstown, which is the closest major town in the area:

This could be a coincidence. It probably is. And if something really were wrong, then (like a lot of you have pointed out) wouldn’t there be some sign of it in the news? But it’s been almost a week now…

I don’t know how to keep my mind off of my family.

Everything seems to lead me back to them. I was trying to distract myself by watching some TV earlier as a distraction, and Jeopardy came on. Jeopardy is my dad’s favorite show, and always has been. One of the things I remember best about growing up was watching it with him every night when he got home. He’d try to answer all of the questions before the contestants did. He was usually wrong, but I think he liked trying.

When there were questions about English, my mom would sometimes come in and try to help him guess. (She’s been an English tutor to the kids in Piedmont for years.) Sam used to watch with us, but now that she’s almost in high school, it’s not cool to like your parents, so she’s usually in her room listening to music, or hanging out with her friends. She still likes me, though – the older brother who got out of Piedmont. She’s saving her allowance to come visit me next month, once exams are over.

I’m not sure why the hell I’m getting so sentimental all of a sudden, though. I feel like I must be overreacting. My mom fell and hit her head, Sam freaked out because Dad wasn’t home to help get her to the doctor, and she forgot that I was on the phone. So it’s probably fine.

There’s going to be some kind of logical explanation for this.

First things first. I have to admit, I wasn’t sure anyone was actually going to find this blog, or that people would care enough to leave comments. I guess I was wrong — I’ve had trouble keeping up with all of the messages of concern and advice you’ve all sent me. I promise I’m reading them, though, and I’ll try to respond if I can.

Unfortunately, that’s about the only good news I’ve had so far. It’s now been four days since I got Sam’s message… and five days since she left it, as one of you pointed out to me. I was so upset about her message that I didn’t even pay attention to the date at the beginning.

I still can’t reach anyone.

That means there’s not a lot to report, I guess. Like me, Kristen was surprised so many of you read the blog (and apparently a little scared, at first, since a lot of you offered to be friends with her on Facebook). She agrees that it’s a good idea, though, if only because it makes me feel like I’m doing something.

When I told her I was going to start the blog, she joked that most people probably wouldn’t even believe that Piedmont exists, since it’s impossible to find on a map. And I guess she’s right… from your comments, apparently most of you have never heard of Piedmont. It makes sense, though: if you aren’t from Piedmont, or the next town – which is well over 40 miles away – there’s pretty much no reason you would have.

Since a lot of you asked, though: the entire town of Piedmont, Utah, has a population of 183. 182, since I left for college…though the Ritters had a little girl just after Christmas, so I guess that evens it out. Aside from the occasional birth or death, though, not much ever changes in Piedmont. It’s an old mining town in southeastern Utah, so there are a lot of mountains, and a handful of nice camping areas up along the Henry River. It’s a small town, even as small towns go. We’ve got a single bakery, a single bar, and only one main road. And all the standard small-town staples: a neighborhood gossip, a town drunk, an old war veteran.

Until I left to come to Cal, I lived in Piedmont my entire life. At first, people here thought I came from an isolated town of rednecks. We’re not, though, and Piedmont isn’t so much isolated as self-reliant. Most of the folks living in Piedmont grow up there, get married there, and never end up leaving. For a lot of them, there’s no good reason to go anywhere else.

So there you go, that’s Piedmont. Hopefully that’ll help…

Okay. I’m likely overreacting, and it’s probably nothing. A couple days from now, things will be fine, and I’ll feel stupid for even doing this, I know. But I’m too anxious right now not to do something.

I don’t even know how to start writing this, but I’ll begin with what happened.

This past Sunday evening, I got a really uncomfortable voicemail from my little sister, Samantha. Even though I’ve been at college for nearly two years, she still calls me every weekend to tell me what’s going on back home in Piedmont, despite the fact that there’s almost never anything going on. Except now, it sounds like there is.

I don’t really know what I’m supposed to say about the voicemail. Just listen to it.

I’d be worried about this either way, but at least there’s a possible explanation. For all of my life, my mother has had a health condition called cardioneurogenic syncope, which is basically an occasional, brief loss of consciousness due to a decrease in blood flow to the brain. Sometimes she faints or falls down, and a couple times we had to take her to the doctor after she hit her head. But it’s not the end of the world.

The weirder part is what’s happened since then… or to be more precise, what hasn’t happened: I can’t get anyone to answer the phone. I tried calling Sam back as soon as I got the message, but she didn’t answer. Neither did our neighbors. I tried all of the other numbers I had – Uncle Kyle, Al’s, the diner, even the police – and not a single answer. There’s probably a good explanation, like phone or electric outages, and I’m just upset over nothing. Kristen says everything is fine.

But the fact is, it’s been more than 24 hours, and I haven’t been able to reach anyone in the entire town, or to make sure that Mom is okay. And while I wish I could just go home and check, I don’t have the money for that sort of thing…and even if I did, I’d have no way to get out to Piedmont unless someone picked me up at the nearest bus stop. And I guess this is kind of stupid, but we’ve been talking about blogs in civic journalism, and I thought maybe if I started one, someone might know something.

So if anyone has any idea why I can’t get in touch with a single person in the town of Piedmont, Utah, can you let me know?