In the Midwest if you live in a small town in the summer you make sure to lock your vehicles up at night. If you don't your front seat will fill up with zucchini.
In the Midwest if you live in a small town in the summer you make sure to lock your vehicles up at night. If you don't your front seat will fill up with zucchini.
Paper targets aren't your friends. They won't lie for you and they don't care if your feelings get hurt.
The dreaded zucchini bandits! Someone left a box full on my front steps. I hate the stuff so put it on the neighbors front steps LOL
Reminds me of a story my grandfather told me. A guy he served with in Europe during WW2 sent him a letter and it was addressed only to his nickname "Kie". Postmaster asked someone who knew him to take it over. No address just the nickname and town as that was all his buddy remembered and there was only one "Kie".
The dreaded zucchini bandits!
Local bank always has a basket out front with zucchini and a free sign
If your drivers license lists you PO box as the address.
P.O. Box 12. Girlfriend did the mail delivery and had P.O. Box 1 The mailboxes were in the general store and if it was after hours like a Sunday as I normally got in I'd just knock on the back kitchen door and the store owners would let me in. I'd go out front and get my mail.
I Am Descended From Men Who Would Not Be Ruled
Fiat Justitia, Ruat Caelum
Moved to our town of about 800 30 years ago. Wife was in the Air Force and we moved here, her home town, when she got out. Shortly after arriving here she had her gall bladder go bad. Drove her to the hospital at 3:30 am, stopped because she was getting sick on the edge of a cornfield on a moonless night. Got her cleaned up and too the hospital. Next morning someone says "Was that you near so and so's place last night?". Can't stop to throw up in a cornfield on a moonless night at 3 in the morning without people knowing it.
Daughters and granddaughters HS class graduation was 26 kids.
One flashing red light, one part time Marshall.
Don
The town I grew up in was so small we didn't have a mayor. The old Veteran that run the post office was called the mayor! He was also called a nosey old fart by some!!
Ken.
Be nice if it was better, but it could be worse
2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. - "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
"Before you argue with someone, ask yourself, is that person even mentally mature enough to grasp the concept of different perspectives? Because if not, there’s absolutely no point."
– Amber Veal
"The Highest form of ignorance is when your reject something you don't know anything about".
- Wayne Dyer
I live in a town of 1200 or so. No traffic lights, one bar/cafe. I live about 15 miles away from a "large" town of 35,000 where I work. The nearest "city" is Spokane, WA, about 65 miles North.
I love living in a small town for the most part. Amazon brings me whatever I can't find in the nearby larger town, and the crime rate is so low that it barely registers.
"Luck don't live out here. Wolves don't kill the unlucky deer; they kill the weak ones..." Jeremy Renner in Wind River
I had an old buddy who lived in a tiny town. He told me... "I've lived here over 50 years. We have one stop sign, but I never have stopped at it."
My wife and I drove through a little town in Montana one Sunday morning about 8:30 am, there were two older guys in their Sunday best practicing with their fly rods in the road. They were in the middle of what was "downtown", each one of them had one lane on the two lane road. They politely moved into one lane, smiled and waved as we passed, kept on practicing after we went by. They stayed in the middle of the road for about another 15 minutes while my wife and I watched and ordered breakfast at the local cafe. The Sunday breakfast/dinner menu was on the chalkboard behind the counter, we got one of the six or seven booths. When the two ladies wearing dresses in the next booth left, the two guys in the middle of the road disappeared.
When the waitress came over, she brought two cups of coffee, we hadn't even asked.
I've often wondered how much that place has changed.
Good times. The PO was in the feed/seed/hardware store . Elementary through HS in same building. But at leat 3 bar/grilles in walking distance where you could always get free cokes from the old guys that placed bets on how far away the bottles were made.
NO STOPLIGHTS ! Two of 'em now. 3 deputies and a Sherriff for the whole county . A dime from Pop got me a Coke and peppermint patty at the local store most everything we didn't grow came from. No kid was ever arrested for vandalism and sent to "reform school" - much worse, they took you home and told the folks what you did !! Pickup ball games anytime chores done - now nobody plays unless they're scheduled to and in uniforms. And lifelong friends made . My grandson is 11, has been in 5 different cities in 3 different states - makes me sad he doesn't get to live the same way.
If I had a choice I would live on an old farm site... but they are VERY hard to find, rents are stupid high... every city slicker wants to have a hobby farm where they last 3-5 years then sell to the next city slicker for inflated prices($250k+++ for 5 acres). Now I am to crippled up to be maintaining that, and keeping a driveway open in winter. I rented a place in the early 80's that was int he middle of a mile section, 1/2 mile long driveway, ultra private... but the driveway was a massive pain to keep open in winter. Most blew clear but as soon as you got where it went through the grove it got buried in feet of snow. The farmer that owned it decided to tear out the grove, made it impossible to heat in winter so I moved and bought the house I am in now. That farm stayed empty after that, nobody wanted to live in a house with no grove and a postage stamp yard. They finally burned it and the barn(barn was a shame, it was all old growth oak planking for the floor and curved oak beans for the roof in the hayloft, it was something I would have jacked up, replaced the barn underneath with a garage with 10 foot walls and turned the hayloft into a house)
My home town had a population of 600. Most people had at least two occupations. One fellow had a motor garage, ran the outdoor picture theatre, and ran/owned the power station. He'd go for a beer after work, and when his wife thought he should be home she would black out the town.
It'll be handy if I never need it.
Insomniac, agnostic, dyslectic - awake all night wondering if there is a Dog.
The other small place in our district was an opal mining settlement. Population would have been unknown, since many of the residents preferred to stay under the radar for various reasons.
The only solid building in the town was the pub. Everything else was round timber, dirt floors, walls and roofs made of beaten out petrol/kerosene tins, kerosene fridges in the more up market establishments, and long drop toilet out the back.
Our contact with the place was through a pair of ex pat New Zealand brothers who did some fencing and well sinking for us - digging holes was what they were good at. They were also, like the rest of the town, confirmed alcoholics, so the work would be a preceded by a few days of drying out after we got them home.
One of their notable achievements was to dig a new long drop for the widow next door. It was going to be six feet, but once they had the windlass up, the hole started to look like a good prospect for opal, so they kept going. They called a halt at 80 feet. It was a bit of a climb up the mullock heap to the little house on top, but the view was worth it.
It'll be handy if I never need it.
Insomniac, agnostic, dyslectic - awake all night wondering if there is a Dog.
Hauled a load to the dump yesterday. Saw a guy going in pulling an empty trailer. Felt that I was superior because all l Liberated was a 30 lb propane tank that will become ether a lead pot or small wood stove....
We have a fall cleanup here where unwanted things are hauled to a transfer station. about 30% of the stuff gets recycled by the locals
Funny thing is that it is billed as A "recycling drop off" - yet they discourage salvage and scrounging by folks who can repair much of what is being scrapped.
Go now and pour yourself a hot one...
Teh fellow who owned the local movie theatre repaired radios and other electronics.
When TV broadcast became available he repaired televisions. It is ironic that television broadcast killed his theater business as folks justified the price of the TV by saving money not going to movies.
This guy also sold heating coal - he brought it in by the boxcar load to heat the theatre. When he closed up shop many folks had to switch to diesel or propane.- neither were reliable at - 30 or colder.
Go now and pour yourself a hot one...
Wilderness and 10X stories make me think of growing up in the Panhandle of Texas as there are a lot of similarities in their stories and extended family members on my mom & dad's side (Uncles & Aunts, Great Uncles and Aunts, Grandmother and great grandmothers all resulted in some similar experiences in my youth).
Harvest season was always fun; particularly when cotton was king and there were limited numbers of mechanical cotton pickers - most small farms would have friends, neighbors, and family all called out to hand pick cotton because the mechanical cotton pickers would not be available until too late in the season, storms coming, or prices dropping at the end of the season. Always liked that song by Roy Clark "I never Picked Cotton"; cause I was picking cotton from the age of 3 years and older (yeah been through this with doubters about my age and being put to work - but as Joe Friday said "Just the Facts Mam"). So we picked cotton, and when gardens came in ( often a garden was 2 or 3 acres) it was picking time and canning time - Family and neighbors would all travel to help pick gardens, swap with others on what they had and what they needed, and of course a couple of weeks of massive canning in mason jars. My, my - how our world has changed in my life; not to mention my grandmother who came to Tejas from Mexico in a covered wagon and watched MAN WALK ON THE MOON as she told the tale in the late 60's early 70's.
Mustang
"In the beginning... the patriot is a scarce man, and brave and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot." - Mark Twain.
You know you live in a small town when you walk into the bank and there’s only a teller and manager there and you horsetrade bricks of primers with the manager and bs for 45 minutes about reloading and hunting. A friendly full service bank.
You are in a small Pennsylvania town when you give driving directions by referring to the doughboy statue in the middle of town. Also, schools and factories close for opening day of rifle deer season.
Wayne
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger - or else it gives you a bad rash.
Venison is free-range, organic, non-GMO and gluten-free
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