Posted on 12/07/2016 9:09:55 AM PST by Mad Dawgg
If you live or have lived in small town America would you be so kind and tell us about it. (For our purposes towns of less that 10 thousand in population but still have city services like Police and Fire Depts. etc.)
But if you would be so kind post your experiences BEFORE you read any others on here. The reason being is I am interested to know if there are trends in small town America that manifest nationwide and to see if they are something that most of us notice without being pointed out by others.
What I am looking for is the experiences of how your town was when you were a kid, and how the town is now and the differences you notice in day to day life there. Please give approximate dates and for purposes of not revealing too much personal info on the net narrowing it down to a decade should suffice. Also if you do not wish to name your town just note the State and or region.
Thanks in advance for any and all responses and the more you have to tell us the better it will be.
The nearest town to me has a small country store. One day I stopped in to buy a snack on the way to do a job. There were several guys hanging out on the benches out front and when I went to the door one of them said that the lady that runs the store had to run some errands but I could just get what I wanted and leave the money on the counter. Well nothing had prices marked on them and I didn’t have change. They told me to get what I wanted a settle up later. I did and stopped back that afternoon. The lady acted like that was normal. I’ve been stopping there often ever since.
Reading Police Beat in the smalltown Maine paper where I grew up... "Fishing without a license", "Keeping Undersized Lobsters", and so on.
Lots to be said for it.
Well, we do have a Toyota engine/transmission factory. It's a start.
Look at what SC has now, starting with a BMW plant, or Alabama with Hyundai. Given the will and the right state incentives, it will turn into something much larger. I know it’s completely turned around the Greenville-Spartanburg area of SC, which used to be sort of the poorer part of the state. Not anymore.
I come from a small town in Vermont but spent half my life on an island in the Pacific with a nearly a million people on it.
Now I live on a different island with only about 3K souls. We have police (8), a Fire Dept. (Volunteer) Municipal water, hydro-electric, trash pick up and sewer service. Most of the streets are paved but there are no multi-lane roads. There are no traffic signals except the one that flashes in front of the Fire House when the engine is about to come out, and another flashing amber light that runs when school lets out.
There is no Walmart, Costco or other big box store on the island. There are two hardware stores, two groceries, Two bars (Plus the Moose and Elk clubs), three marine chandleries and thirteen churches. There is no restaurant open after 4PM so there are a lot of dinner parties, pot lucks, church socials and community events. We have an excellent library and community theater too.
There is no road connecting this community with any other town; no bridge to the mainland. Access is by boat or airplane only. No large ships call here either. Tourism is limited to a few hunting and fishing lodges on the island or ferry passengers stretching their legs.
P.S. Didn’t see a single yard sign or bumper sticker for the national election.
Prior to my existence in the late ‘60s there was a tinkerer that would come around with pots/pans and repair services for the same. I’m told they also did a fair amount of general goods and groceries as well.
and then after I had moved on to college and other things in the mid ‘80s there was a school bus that made the route through town and the countryside and other places nearby that did something very similar. Understand it was popular in the amish areas as they didn’t have to harness the wagon and such just to go into town.
Sounds like Ocracoke Island, NC, before the tourists found it at least.
Utica, MI in Macomb County has been swallowed up by the suburban sprawl of its surrounding communities. Roundabouts are being installed all over the place because of traffic congestion. People all over are texting while driving...First there was “white flight” coming north out of Detroit. Now there’re McMansions, fast food, strip malls, supermarkets, superstores and sports bars everywhere. I liked it the way it was in 1967 when Utica celebrated its sesquicentennial. The Down Home Days summer festival and the Fall Roundup carnival are gone too. For a while there, Utica, Michigan had it all.
On the one hand, our new governor-elect Jim Justice blathers endlessly about jobs, jobs, jobs ... On the other hand, he’s a democRAT and a complete suckup to the AFL-CIO. On the third hand, he’s the owner of The Greenbriar. So I have no idea what to realistically expect from him. I voted for Bill Cole.
Well I was born in a small town and I can breathe in a small town. Gonna die in this small town and that’s probably where they’ll bury me.
Well, someone had to post this...
I’ve been to the Greenbriar precisely once in my life, and it seriously impressed me. I’d never seen a shower with the little water jets built into the tile all around, and this was in a “cheap” single room. Fresh cut flowers in the vase every day, shoes shined, the works regardless. Very grand, very old school. I drove a group of execs up for a conference there, in an RV. They wanted to drink and play cards rather than fly, so they rented one. I lucked out and got to drive, on the clock, lol.
WV went for Trump heavily. If your governor has any survival instincts whatsoever, he’ll be a lot more accommodative than usual going forward. If not, out he’ll go as he really should anyway.
Well, maybe it isn’t such a weird memory after all, then. I’ve never seen one anywhere else.
Same here. Most of the “Police Beat” items are hunting and fishing violations or under-age drinking.
I settled into a little Dutch farming village in western Washington just 5 miles from the Canadian border. Our industries are all related to agriculture. The meat packing plant has its Mexican workers, some of which may even be here legally. If you want to know what is going on in town, just sit down for a huge country breakfast at my favorite Dutch restaurant, keep your ears open and you'll hear what is going on.
I still travel the 110 miles to Seattle and back for chamber music concerts in January and July. But I've found a thriving classical music scene in Vancouver, and the venue downtown is only a one hour drive. (A 90 minute drive if they hold the concert at the University of British Columbia.)
When the customs people see me in jacket, tie and displaying my passport, they say, "Oh hi, Pub. Got a concert tonight? Who's playing?" I get the same friendly response when I cross back after the concert.
I saw only one Hillary sign in town and plenty of Trump signs. When Trump came to town during the campaign, the protestors lining the streets were all from Bellingham or Seattle.
I like the sense of safety, peace and quiet.
The town's old newspapers have been digitized, so we're able to read a lot of local stories dating back to 1880. Funny how the old saying, "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose" (the more things change, the more they stay the same) seems to apply here! Human nature doesn't change. much.
But I have noticed two big changes:
(1) the public schools here were ok 25 years ago; now they're terrible
(2) the opioid endemic; many deaths from heroin overdose, esp young people.
Every small town in America has probably been plagued by drug infestation since the 1960s. But the opiate addiction situation has really exploded.
You might already be familiar with Charles Murray's book, "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010"? My town has a significant number of Hispanic and Asian immigrants, but is still majority white. And while I would say it is a decent place to live, it resembles Murray's prototypical "Fishtown," a working class community that used to be close-knit, but has lost stability in recent years. I blame this mostly on family breakdown that has been promoted by the Left for many decades.
The definition of small town varies from place to place. For example, in our section of the New Jersey Shore the small towns run north to south in a continuous strip (interrupted by larger towns/small cities, like Asbury Park and Long Branch) for the first mile or two from the oceanfront. Unless you see the “welcome to” sign or know the area it’s hard to determine where one ends and the next begins. So the impression is that of one very, very long town.
Our town has the smallest population and oldest demographic of any of the towns/cities in our New England state. On voting day, the PTA puts on a bake sale, on the honor system. People gather in the parking lot to discuss the kids and grand kids, the upcoming church bizarre and to congratulate those who have bagged deer during bow season. We dutifully show our identification although unnecessary because one poll worker is a neighbor and the other a former bus driver.
During power outages we help each other by taking turns getting fuel for the generators and by checking in with one another and sharing meals.
In sickness everyone turn out to help, mow the lawn, put in the dock, run to the store or dump.
Although we didn’t grow up here, we know many folks who did and with the exception of technology, it hasn’t changed much but it could have. During our twenty years here a few interlopers with horrific business ideas tried to slip in projects that would have ruined the bucolic nature of the hamlet. That is when the hunters and grandmas go all Mama Bear until the danger goes away and we can all relax and settle back and appreciate what we have.
I forgot to add that we are a community of 700 citizens.
They used to let school out early for the opening day of various hunting seasons here. Don’t anymore.
We lived in a small Texas town for a number of years. When we moved back to the city I felt like I had awakened form a long sleep.
I absolutely hated small town life. Everyone knew everyone else’s business or thought they did. The bank employees talked about your bank balance, the doctors nurse talked about who’s daughter got pregnant. The court house employees talked about who was getting a divorce. The final straw was when the realtors neighbors knew what our house was worth before we did.
Nothing was private! Never never again for me!
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