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Small Town Living

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somethingshiny

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Those who grew up in small towns will laugh when they
read this. Those who didn''t will be in disbelief and
won''t understand how true it is.

>>>>> 1) You can name everyone you graduated with.
>>>>>
>>>>> 2) You know what 4-H means.
>>>>>
>>>>> 3) You went to parties at a pasture, barn, gravel pit, or
>>>>> in the middle of a dirt road. On Monday you could always
>>>>> tell who was at the party because of the scratches on their
>>>>> legs from running through the woods when the party was
>>>>> busted. (See #6.)
>>>>>
>>>>> 4) You used to''drag''Main .
>>>>>
>>>>> 5) You whispered the ''F'' word and your parents
>>>>> knew within the hour.
>>>>>
>>>>> 6) You scheduled parties around the schedules of
>>>>> different police officers, because you new which ones would
>>>>> bust you and which ones wouldn''t.
>>>>>
>>>>> 7) You could never buy cigarettes because all the store
>>>>> clerks knew how old you were (and if you were old enough,
>>>>> they''d tell your parents anyhow). Besides, where would
>>>>> you get the money?
>>>>>
>>>>> 8) When you did find somebody old enough and brave enough
>>>>> to buy cigarettes, you still had to go out into the country
>>>>> and drive on back roads to smoke them.
>>>>>
>>>>> 9) You knew which section of the ditch you would find the
>>>>> beer your buyer dropped off.
>>>>>
>>>>> 10) It was cool to date somebody from the neighboring
>>>>> town.
>>>>>
>>>>> 11) The whole school went to the same party after
>>>>> graduation.
>>>>>
>>>>> 12) You didn''t give directions by street names but
>>>>> rather by references. Turn by Nelson''s house, go 2
>>>>> blocks to Anderson''s, and it''s four houses left of
>>>>> the track field.
>>>>>
>>>>> 13) The golf course had only 9 holes.
>>>>>
>>>>> 14) You couldn''t help but date a friend''s
>>>>> ex-boyfriend/girlfriend.
>>>>>
>>>>> 15) Your car stayed filthy because of the dirt roads, and
>>>>> you will never own a dark vehicle for this reason.
>>>>>
>>>>> 16) The town next to you was considered ''trashy''
>>>>> or ''snooty,'' but was actually just like your town.
>>>>>
>>>>> 17) You referred to anyone with a house newer then 1955
>>>>> as the ''rich'' people.
>>>>>
>>>>> 18) The people in the ''big city'' dressed funny,
>>>>> and then you picked up the trend 2 years later.
>>>>>
>>>>> 19) Anyone you wanted could be found at the local gas
>>>>> station or the dairybar.
>>>>>
>>>>> 20) You saw at least one friend a week driving a tractor
>>>>> through town or one of your friends driving a grain truck
>>>>> to school occasionally.
>>>>>
>>>>> 21) The gym teacher suggested you haul hay for the summer
>>>>> to get stronger.
>>>>>
>>>>> 22) Directions were given using THE stop light as a
>>>>> reference.
>>>>>
>>>>> 23) When you decided to walk somewhere for exercise, 5
>>>>> people would pull over and ask if you wanted a ride.
>>>>>
>>>>> 24) Your teachers called you by your older siblings''
>>>>> names.
>>>>>
>>>>> 25) Your teachers remembered when they taught your
>>>>> parents.
>>>>>
>>>>> 26) You could charge at any local store or write checks
>>>>> without any ID.
>>>>>
>>>>> 27) There was no McDonalds.
>>>>>
>>>>> 28) The closest mall was over an hour away.
>>>>>
>>>>> 29) It was normal to see an old man riding through town
>>>>> on a riding lawn mower.
>>>>>
>>>>> 30) You''ve pee''d in a cornfield.
>>>>>
>>>>> 31) Most people went by a nickname.
>>>>>
>>>>> 32) You laughed your butt off reading this because you
>>>>> know it is true, and you forward it to everyone who may have
>>>>> lived in a small town.
>>>>>


I just thought this was hilarious!! My town was even smaller than this. We had NO stoplight, dairybar, or golf course, and ONE police officer!
 

Linda W

Super_Ideal_Rock
Joined
Feb 15, 2006
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10,630
LOL, that is great SS, made me laugh.
 

NewEnglandLady

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Jul 27, 2007
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Haha, I can definitely relate and will add a couple to the list:

1. Your local paper only prints residents'' first names because everybody is on a first-name basis
2. Each famer has his own table at the local diner where they all congregate for the morning cup of coffee before heading out to their fields

I absolutely loved where I grew up and still feel most at home on a tractor with the smell of a freshly-plowed dirt in my nostrils.
 

dragonfly411

Ideal_Rock
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Jun 25, 2007
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7,378
100% true for me. And definitely for SO he grew up in a town with ONE STOP LIGHT.... ONE
 

Octavia

Ideal_Rock
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Oct 28, 2007
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So true. My hometown added a second stoplight a few years ago and it caused all sorts of chaos because everyone had to re-learn how to give directions. A few more contributions:

1. Traffic jams happen when a tractor hauling hay bales from the field to the silo takes up the entire road and won't let anyone pass. This is a perfectly acceptable excuse for tardiness, and people usually know exactly who the culprit was ("Oh, must have been Johnny Smith, I was wonderin' when he was gonna put away that hay of his, been a darn mess for over a week now.").

2. Everyone goes to the (only) local bar on the day after Thanksgiving, and it's like a really creepy version of your high school yearbook...and your dad's high school yearbook...and people who are in this year's high school yearbook might even be there, too...
 

lydia

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Oh my, this is soooo true. Funny how I love going back for visits. Nothing of course ever changes. (even the hair styles - everyone goes to the same hair dresser.)
 

kellyfish

Brilliant_Rock
Joined
Mar 1, 2007
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682
I grew up in the Mississippi Delta & our town of 700 had (still does not) no red lights. I never had a key to my house as it was never locked. Thee was no such thing as being popular--everyone was well known, for better or worse. We waved at everyone who passed in a car. We were pretty wild in HS (alcohol, pot, messing around), I suppose we were bored. Most of the kids in my graduating class of 19 went on to be relatively successful...a PhD in polymer chemistry, several nurses, a couple of attorneys, teachers, I have a MEd--and of course some farmers and a couple of prescription drug fiends.
 

TravelingGal

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Sounds absolutely wonderful yet so bizarre/foreign to me at the same time. I envy it though...I love Los Angeles but I still flinch when I hear capguns!
 

Skippy123

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LOL, cute; I can understand some of those since we would spend our summers in my grandmas small town.
 

somethingshiny

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I''ve moved around a lot, so I grew up in the suburbs of Dallas and was quite aware of all the gangs and conveniences of city life. Then we moved to a town of 200 in the middle of IL (where my parents were born and raised and where I lived until I was 4). That was a culture shock! Everyone knew who I was because "you look just like your mom" or "I bet I know who your daddy is.." (that one creeped me out!)

Everyone still remembers the "fire of ott three" which is when my parents'' house burned down. When "outsiders" ask what happened, the villagers will say, "I told ya, it BURNED DOWN!"

Our greatest parties were at the "boose", which was an actual old train caboose. The kids built a couple other sheds around it so we could all spend the night. When someone''s parent''s got new furniture, they gladly donated the old stuff to the kids. We needed it often, because on a cold night, we''d just drag out a sofa and have a bonfire!

The "big" town, is a town of 650. That''s where the school was that we shared with 3 towns. My high school had approximately 100 people. My class was HUGE at 34! We have our class reunions during our annual town celebration at the beer tent.

I actually flunked my first driver''s exam, because I didn''t know how to do those "city stops", meaning the road that will merge into another street of non-slowing on-coming traffic. In my town, everyone knew where I was going and would gladly make room for my car in the direction I needed to head!
 

CDNinNYC

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Very foreign to me! What''s a "4-H"?
 

laurel25

Brilliant_Rock
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800
In the small town where we currently live is the ONLY stop light in the ENTIRE COUNTY! Yes, one stoplight and we live in the largest county in MN!

In the small town where I lived in WI for a couple of years, the cool place for high schoolers to hang out was a semi trailer that had been converted into a party shack!

And in the little town where the house we''re renovatiing is located there are hitching posts in the parking lots for the Amish folks to tie up their horses & buggies! We get to watch the young Amish kids race buggies on Sundays on their way home from church - it''s so funny to watch!
 

tiffanytwisted

Brilliant_Rock
Joined
Mar 28, 2006
Messages
792
This is so funny. The small town I grew up in had one four way stop, not even a light.
In high school we had parties on a gravel road, where 2 roads met. We actually said "meet at the fork" and everyone knew where to go!
 

iwannaprettyone

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Date: 11/10/2008 4:47:21 PM
Author: CDNinNYC
Very foreign to me! What''s a ''4-H''?

It is a community development program based on teaching the "youth of america" skills, mainly animal related such as showing livestock.
 

iwannaprettyone

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We had a McDonalds, that was an "uptown" dinner lol.
 

bebe

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Hubby grew up in a town like that. He and his high school buddies once put a cow on top of the court house!!
 

somethingshiny

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Date: 11/10/2008 4:47:21 PM
Author: CDNinNYC
Very foreign to me! What's a '4-H'?


At the beginning of each 4-H meeting, all the kids say an oath "I pledge. . . My Head to clearer thinking My Heart to greater loyalty My Hands to larger service and My Health to better living ..."

Head
Heart
Hands
Health

Most of my cousins still show (cattle, hogs, sheep, horses) in the 4-H. They also have programs for Engineering, Technology, etc.

Here is a page for their mission statement 4-H


eta-My 8th grade teacher taught my mom and my dad. That school is also where my grandpa graduated high school. I believe his class was of 6 people.
We had to co-op with 2-3 other towns to make a football team. We also had a Spanish teacher who didn't actually know Spanish!
 

Elmorton

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Aww SS, thanks for putting a smile on my face :) Unfortunately, the small town I grew up in has changed drastically since I left. Before I learned to drive, there was only one stoplight. By the time I was driving we had one, then two, then four. Sometimes I still have the urge to run the light when I go to my parents' house. It seems unnatural :) We used to have "drive your tractor to school day" hosted by the FFA (Future Farmers of America for you non-small town folks). One day, you'd show up to school and there wouldn't be any parking spaces free because there were four combines in the parking lot. My small town now has a McDonald's and, since I moved away, now gives out liqour licenses. The first time I saw beer at the IGA I nearly died laughing. My mom described the section as "HUGE!" when in reality, it was the size of a bookshelf. Still, that was major progress. I love that I grew up in a small town, but I don't think I could ever go back to living in one. The first time I went home from college, I stayed awake all night - I couldn't sleep because I'd forgotten how dark my bedroom was at night.

ETA: And my friends from college could not let it go that my first kiss was in the middle of a cornfield (in a car, of course). What, that's not normal?!?!
 

deegee

Brilliant_Rock
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Ha! I got stuck behind a tractor on my way to work just this morning. Who gets out on the one road through town on a tractor at 7:30 am?
 

Fly Girl

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Yep. I grew up in one of those places. We had a 9 hole golf course and no stop light. I knew I''d been living in the city for too long when my folks called and said they were driving up to visit me and were leaving town around 2 in the afternoon, and my first thought was they were trying to beat the rush hour traffic out of town. Ha...there is no rush hour traffic, and no traffic jam other than that caused by the aforementioned tractor, but the timing of the tractor is unscheduled, of course.
 

Octavia

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Elmorton, my brother was in FFA and organized Tractor Day his senior year, somehow I never realized that people did that other places, too! He also pulled a senior prank that involved livestock, which people have been talking about ever since and probably will continue talking about for years to come.

The golf course in my hometown is pretty classy, it's a full 18 holes -- but that's because the local tech college has a golf course management program so it's their training grounds.

When I was in HS and early college, I drove a very distinctive little Honda hatchback. Toward the end of college, I got a different, more generic-looking car and stopped hearing from people much when I was home for visits. Silly me, I didn't connect the two things until I was told by multiple people that they had no idea I was home, since they hadn't seen me driving around lately. And speaking of driving, it still seems weird to me after several years to walk two minutes to the corner shop when I need bread or milk, instead of driving 25 minutes to the grocery store.

ETA: I forgot to add that the weekly newspaper still has one of those "Goings-On" columns where things like, "Ron and Sally Matthews visited their daughter Brenda in New Hampshire for the weekend. It rained, so the drive took 4 hours instead of 3 1/2, but they still had a good time" qualify as newsworthy. It's quaint and I appreciate the community feel, but I have to admit that it gives me a good laugh whenever I'm there!
 

Lynnie

Brilliant_Rock
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Feb 17, 2008
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1,166
Haha, that was funny.

I''m a big-time city gal, and last year DF and I went to visit his dad in a small town in NC. We were all sitting in his dad''s living room, and DF realized he had left his cell phone in the car. So I say, "Oh, the keys are in my purse. I''ll get them for you". Well, his dad decided to make fun of me (good-mannerly, of course) for the rest of the trip. "City gal here locked up her car! She thinks someone''s gonna break into it! Ain''t no house around besides this one for 3 miles!!" Forget the fact that I live in a huge city with a buttload of crime, and it''s automatic to lock up the car. At least I didn''t put the club on, I''d hate to hear what he''d have to say then!

Another funny thing that happened: We stopped at this teeny gas station. The man clearly knew we were OOT-ers. So we gas up, and go in the store for a snack or soda or something, and we decide to buy a scratch-off lottery ticket. Well, it won for $10. And the man (hick as hick can get - I mean that in the nicest way, too) says he can''t cash it ''cause he didn''t have enough cash in the register!!! I have never heard of such a thing... I still think he must''ve been pulling my leg!
T-gal, I hear ya on the cap-gun thing. I couldn''t sleep in NC because it was TOO QUIET... At home I let the sirens lull me to sleep!
3.gif

It was fun, that trip. A whole other world (to me).
 

MustangGal

Ideal_Rock
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Jun 18, 2004
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I didn''t grow up in a small town, but we moved to one shortly after getting married. There were 150 people, NO stores, and the 15 mile drive to work had 2 stop signs on it. There wasn''t a red light for 30 miles. It was 45 minutes to a grocery store, and over an hour to the mall! The school had all ages, and served several towns in the area. There wasn''t much farming, it was more of a cattle area, so once in a while the cows would get out and block the road.

It was a whole different way of life there, and even odder, that was in the middle of Southern California. You wouldn''t think places like that exist in SoCal. After almost 2 years, we ended up in Phoenix, that was a change!
 

Upgradable

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Thanks Shiny!! That was great!

My Illinois farm town of 6500 had no stop light until I was in college. McDonald's opened during my senior year. We had a "circuit" we cruised (basically a big square) on the weekends. We'd try to tip our pop cans when we passed by the cops to try and trick them into stopping us. It never worked. They KNEW who was drinking and who wasn't. Weekend parties were held at DR (Drinker's Road), a dirt road out in the country, chosen because it was blocked from view due to high corn or trees or curves. You'd always have to check though because the actual location of DR was frequently changed when the cops got wise or a local farmer busted us up! I laughed like crazy at the "scrapes on the legs" from fleeing through the fields! We even had a party line on our phone when I was young.

Oh, and from kindergarten to 8th grade I was at the same school where my mom taught. High school I was faced with having my father as the driver's ed and PE teacher and the football coach. A guy had to be brave to date Coach's daughter!

Some additions: Your first job was when you were 12 or 13 walking beans or detasseling corn. You never knew your house had a key. It wouldn't have mattered anyway because the lock had been painted over dozens of times. You had a friend who could recognize everyone out at night by seeing the cars on the road. Your first time was in the backseat of your boyfriend's car. When you go home and visit now, you don't have to call your old friends and tell them you're coming because they just stop anyway seeing your car in your parent's driveway!
 

vespergirl

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Jan 29, 2007
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5,497
LOL!!! I am actually from NYC, but my husband is from a small rural town, and this reminds me so much of the stories he tells about growing up. His parents still live there, so I''ve seen much of list firsthand. Really cute - I''ve got to forward this to DH!
 

CDNinNYC

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Date: 11/10/2008 5:56:39 PM
Author: iwannaprettyone

Date: 11/10/2008 4:47:21 PM
Author: CDNinNYC
Very foreign to me! What''s a ''4-H''?

It is a community development program based on teaching the ''youth of america'' skills, mainly animal related such as showing livestock.
Thanks!
 

CDNinNYC

Ideal_Rock
Joined
Oct 21, 2007
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2,216
Date: 11/10/2008 9:01:46 PM
Author: somethingshiny

Date: 11/10/2008 4:47:21 PM
Author: CDNinNYC
Very foreign to me! What''s a ''4-H''?


At the beginning of each 4-H meeting, all the kids say an oath ''I pledge. . . My Head to clearer thinking My Heart to greater loyalty My Hands to larger service and My Health to better living ...''

Head
Heart
Hands
Health

Most of my cousins still show (cattle, hogs, sheep, horses) in the 4-H. They also have programs for Engineering, Technology, etc.

Here is a page for their mission statement 4-H


eta-My 8th grade teacher taught my mom and my dad. That school is also where my grandpa graduated high school. I believe his class was of 6 people.
We had to co-op with 2-3 other towns to make a football team. We also had a Spanish teacher who didn''t actually know Spanish!
Thanks for the explanation somethingshiny!
 

AdiS

Brilliant_Rock
Joined
Jul 17, 2008
Messages
1,337
I too used to spend the summers in a small town where my grandpa was born so I have a pretty good idea what is it like. I was born and raised in a capital city (around 2 million people, maybe more in the recent years) so it was all new and really weird to me that people on the street would know my name and ask me about my family. But it has its charm, I''m just a bit jealous of all you guys who grew up in places like that.
 
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