MERRY CHRISTMAS !!
(taken in 2014)
MERRY CHRISTMAS !!
(taken in 2014)
Grew up in a town of 900 where my father was the local doctor. In looking back it was an unbelievable experience.
There is a big difference in living in one with a Walmart and one with just a Dollar Store or even a just a convenience store with a gas pump.
And then there are towns with decent internet access and some that have none other than satellite.
Salida, CO is the classic American small town. Only 5000 here and its an arts and crafts town. Most Front Range mountain communities have ski resorts and this doesn’t. Most notable feature of life? Zero violent crime. A murder hasn’t happened for over a century. No one locks their door and theft is unheard of. Life here is relaxed and slow-paced which is what comes from not living in the big city.
I grew up in a small town (3000) in the Texas Panhandle. The thing I remember most was that everyone was in your business. I probably had 5 moms, and at least 3 dads. You couldn’t pull any crap because your parents would know about it before you got home.
I also remember, even as a small boy, 8 or 9, having the rule “be home before the street lights come on”. I may go a full weekend without seeing my parents. Somebody’s mom would feed us, and someone would let us sleep over.
We also roamed the county. I used to hike down the railroad tracks for miles. No cell phone, no contact. If I would have been snakebit or kidnapped, no one would have known about it for days.
But I always seemed to make it home before the streetlights came on.
I don’t live in a small town, but I do make the trip to town about once a week. Grew up doing the same. No traffic - ever. I just knew every part of town in detail, side streets and all. Learned to be self reliant, have an imagination, and be content.
My town. Twelve hundred people more or less, a gas station/food mart (small), a post office, a restaurant and a tavern. Two real estate offices. A community church. Anything larger is forty miles away.
I’m disqualified. 1 store, 2 churches, volunteer fire department, no post office,no PDC. Couldn’t and wouldn’t live anywhere else.
I moved from Seattle to a small town in south central KY in 2011. I had to get my vehicle inspected to get KY plates. I went to our sheriffs office for the inspection and the very nice lady behind the counter (the other lady behind the counter was working on something with one of her kids. We were the only ones there) went with me to my car and got the vin number. That was the inspection.
But the cool part:
We came back into their office and they said it would be five bucks. I don’t carry cash but they would not take a credit card. They said, no problem and to just bring the money in next week. My wife went in the next week to give them five dollars and they said, “That’s ok. We took care of it.”
DMV in Seattle would have been a bit more hard nosed about it.
The town I live in is around 7,000 people. It was a rural farming community until the farmers started selling their land to developers and they built houses and then the yuppies invaded. We bought our house there in 1996 and all this happened since then.
People tend to leave me alone because they don’t know what to make of me. I drive very nice cars and wear ripped up jeans and concert t-shirts. I like being left alone.
The town itself is run by jackasses. I can’t go into detail because it will be going to court.
I moved to an exurban small town in North Carolina when I bought my first house in late 1993, moved in, in February 1994. One thing I immediately noticed, and it’s still true but not quite so exaggerated, is that people’s personal “space” is huge compared to urban dwellers. It’s hard to tell in the local convenience store, if they’re standing in line or just gathered around shooting the breeze and catching up on local news or gossip.
Grew up and lived in small Appalachian communities in Ohio and West Virginia for most of my life. The Norman Rockwellesque memories of these places have been replaced with rampant unemployment, hopelessness, and drug use. Trump’s election is perhaps a last gasp for these areas. Sorry to be so gloomy.
I grew up in a town of less than 1000. I still get the weekly paper. Recently, the city council meeting was consumed by the question as to whether the town dog should ride in the cab of the city truck. The mayor thought it unprofessional.
Presently in a small town — 7000 people, 200+ families. All family homes except for two apartment buildings. Husband was born here. Kids still walk to school. (GREAT schools) ‘’Downtown’’ is a drug store, sandwich place and a nails salon. Close by Starbuck and booze store.One main street. Memorial Day parade every year. HIGH taxes.
The biggest change has been going from conservative to liberal -— with the influx of New Yorkers moving in because of the schools and closeness to trains going into the city — 12 miles away the way the birds fly.
All in all — probably not ‘’small town America’’ as one would see in fly over country. You gotta problem with that??
My one observation over the last 10-15 years is that small towns like mine eventually get contaminated by the big city as more and more people move here who don't share the values of the people who grew up here.
“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.”
I grew up in the small town of LaFayette NY (’70s onward). (Was actually elsewhere earlier, but remember little of it.) Had it pretty darned good ... wasn’t until decades later I realized that describing the characteristics make it sound downright poverty-stricken, even though we were pretty well off: grew half our food, burned wood for heat, rarely watched TV (and upgraded that to a VCR+monitor), made & repaired clothes, made apple cider & maple syrup from our & neighbors’ trees, almost never ate out, brown-bagged school lunch, often rode bikes miles to activities, skied out the back door, camped every month (snow or not). Culture/ethnicity was absolutely “American rural” from seriously poor to humble-but-well-off, with a good percentage of Native Americans (bordered a reservation).
Now live in Cumming GA, suburban life. Small forest in backyard. All the above points are much more “modern” (though I’d rather go back). Hard to find a modern home without an HOA. Culture/ethnicity is dominantly well-off (middle to rich) white, good contingent of other ethnicities, with strong poor Hispanic presence. Population is exploding here, very soon area will be off your list (if not already, depending on how you define “town” which I’m technically just outside the border of). County has been dubbed “sixth most redneck in GA”.
Now to read other descriptions, and see how the thread coalesces for a better answer.
My town has more than 10,000 people but it strongly resembles the painting you posted. It has little industry but is healthy because it is what is known as a “bedroom community” (which does not mean that everyone is busy sleeping around, it means that people live here but work elsewhere /s).
The town I grew up in is under 10,000 people and I have occasion to visit now and then. When I drive through the streets I walked as a kid, it depresses me every time. The businesses on Main Street are mostly gone and the few that remain are dismal. Empty storefronts everywhere where it was once the typical small town Main Street out of a Norman Rockwell painting. The homes where I used to deliver papers are run down as the older generation has passed on and the new owners do little with them. Crime and heroin are big problems. It is painful to know what it once was.