Life in a Small Town
We're always talking about the differences between the regions where we live. These characteristics of a small town have been bouncing around in my head, and I think the only way to get rid of them in to write them down.
You know you live in a small town when:
The people you grew up with all know your middle name, because they remember your mother shouting, "Billy Bob Bennett - You get home this minute!"
Everyone knows what church you belong to.
Directions are given as follows: "Well, you know where Juanita Holder lives, don'tcha? It's catty-cornered across the street from her."
Or even better - "You know where Doc Campbell's office used to be? Well, the NSC office is right across the street."
Or even better - "You remember the old car wash that used to be the turn-around on the cruise strip? Well, the NSC office in it that building."
A long line of traffic forms behind very large farm machinery going through town.
A "long line" consists of three cars.
Everybody waves at the Chief of Police, parked in the old gym parking lot, watching traffic. Only outsiders or teenagers speed.
Everybody reads the police report for news of their relatives and the kids of their friends.
Social events revolve around the school and are scheduled to avoid the refinishing of the old and new gym floors.
All the town meetings are coordinated, so they don't conflict.
You can call anyone in the phone book with the same last name, and they're all related, so they tell you the right number.
When a new name is mentioned, the conversation stops until everyone can be briefed on who they're related to. This discussion goes back several generations.
The closest place to buy live bait is in Arab.
When a dog is loose, everyone knows who it belongs to.
An auction is the height of the social season.
There are no traffic lights and the City Council removes two of the four stop signs on what used to be the main drag through town.
The only traffic after six p.m. is on the teenager's cruise strip.
A stranger can come into town and get directions to anyone's house by asking some old guy raking leaves in his front yard. All they need is a first name.
There are very few "secrets," as everybody knows everybody else's business (or at least they think they do).
If you want to know something, ask the "coffee shop crowd," (though I don't know where they'd be, since the Rhodes station closed down!)
I'd love to hear some of your small town descriptors!
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There are also just so many things you can do with a big bag of cucumbers, if you don't can pickles! I still have four cucumbers and three turnips in the tiny frig in the NSC office!
Everybody in a small town knows what kind of car you drive, so, in addition to the excess garden produce issue, there are other considerations. My sister was visiting this weekend, and we left her car parked in front of the NSC office when we went up to the Veteran's Ceremony at the school. I had to laugh, because I knew the rumors it would start, when the townspeople saw an unfamiliar vehicle out front!
Sure enough, one of my friends said, "Oh, your sister is here. I thought you had a new boyfriend!"
Hahahaha! You gotta love a small town!
You know you live in a small town when the UPS driver knows that you won't be home, so he delivers your package to the school where you teach - in a nearby town!
Or when your mom and sister send your son a "giggle stick" and the rural mail carrier brings it all the way up to the house, so she can be there when you open it!
Or when your sister can find your babysitter's house by asking someone on the street where "Betty, who keeps kids" lives.