Facts about life in a small town?
December 29, 2014 5:15 PM Subscribe
[For a fiction project] Tell me about signifiers of present-day life in a very small U.S. town.
For example, I've just been vacationing in a small town where if you ask someone their phone number, they say "####" -- only 4 digits because all the numbers in this town have the same exchange. Even the town's self-published phone book lists just the last four digits. The town newspaper is a xeroxed legal-size paper folded in half.
As a big city person, I can certainly imagine the typical small town stuff -- like, only one market, one restaurant, no stoplights, stuff like that. But what are some other signifiers that I wouldn't likely know?
For example, I've just been vacationing in a small town where if you ask someone their phone number, they say "####" -- only 4 digits because all the numbers in this town have the same exchange. Even the town's self-published phone book lists just the last four digits. The town newspaper is a xeroxed legal-size paper folded in half.
As a big city person, I can certainly imagine the typical small town stuff -- like, only one market, one restaurant, no stoplights, stuff like that. But what are some other signifiers that I wouldn't likely know?
People wave to each other from the steering wheel as they pass each other on the road. This is especially common in rural areas where you might have a far drive from farmhouse to "town".
posted by Brittanie at 5:26 PM on December 29, 2014 [19 favorites]
posted by Brittanie at 5:26 PM on December 29, 2014 [19 favorites]
In much of rural America, even those single small locally owned supermarkets and drugstores are being driven out of business by the Walmart or Target, et cetera, in the next town over. There is still one tiny supermarket in my hometown, but almost everybody goes to the Walmart 20 minutes away because it's got better prices and variety. These Walmarts tend to be located either near an interstate highway or in a sort of central location that is convenient to many smaller towns.
There are also very few jobs. Most people don't work in the small town where they live, but will drive a half hour or more to a bigger nearby town with more opportunities.
And it really is true that everybody in town goes to the local football game on Friday nights. My grandparents were still going into their 80s, after even their grandchildren were grown and out of school.
posted by something something at 5:26 PM on December 29, 2014 [11 favorites]
There are also very few jobs. Most people don't work in the small town where they live, but will drive a half hour or more to a bigger nearby town with more opportunities.
And it really is true that everybody in town goes to the local football game on Friday nights. My grandparents were still going into their 80s, after even their grandchildren were grown and out of school.
posted by something something at 5:26 PM on December 29, 2014 [11 favorites]
Rogers, AR phone books used to be laminated cards. One for Yellow Pages and one for White Pages.
Dairy Queen as the hub of everyone's social life.
Movie theater only shows one movie.
Newspaper might be weekly
High School sports are very important
There will be a parade if a McDonald's Opens
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 5:28 PM on December 29, 2014 [4 favorites]
Dairy Queen as the hub of everyone's social life.
Movie theater only shows one movie.
Newspaper might be weekly
High School sports are very important
There will be a parade if a McDonald's Opens
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 5:28 PM on December 29, 2014 [4 favorites]
Tradio - classified ads on the radio (LA Times story). Also known as Swap and Shop, and by various other names. Short piece on This American Life (Act 3).
posted by mireille at 5:28 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by mireille at 5:28 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
Hmm. Based on my experiences growing up in an extremely small town (~150 people or so)... these might not hold true for slightly larger places.
- If you tell somebody your last name, they immediately know where you live, who you're related to, and how long your family has been in town. (In small enough towns there is never anyone new unless they are out-of-town visitors, in which case telling people your name immediately enables them to realise who you are visiting!)
- When a car goes by people automatically recognise whose it is, and can often guess where they are going because they are that familiar with everyone's movements.
- Small enough towns don't even have streets with names; people give directions using things like "turn left at the Jones' house, but be careful not to run over their cat."
- There is usually some nearby larger town (even if "nearby" == "25 miles away") that is bigger and invariably referred to as "the city." Even if it too is relatively small in absolute terms.
posted by forza at 5:28 PM on December 29, 2014 [18 favorites]
- If you tell somebody your last name, they immediately know where you live, who you're related to, and how long your family has been in town. (In small enough towns there is never anyone new unless they are out-of-town visitors, in which case telling people your name immediately enables them to realise who you are visiting!)
- When a car goes by people automatically recognise whose it is, and can often guess where they are going because they are that familiar with everyone's movements.
- Small enough towns don't even have streets with names; people give directions using things like "turn left at the Jones' house, but be careful not to run over their cat."
- There is usually some nearby larger town (even if "nearby" == "25 miles away") that is bigger and invariably referred to as "the city." Even if it too is relatively small in absolute terms.
posted by forza at 5:28 PM on December 29, 2014 [18 favorites]
Oh, and knowing your politician's families. Our mayor's mom worked at the deli their family owned and you could see her all the time.
Churches with small membership but distinct personalities.
posted by spunweb at 5:28 PM on December 29, 2014 [4 favorites]
Churches with small membership but distinct personalities.
posted by spunweb at 5:28 PM on December 29, 2014 [4 favorites]
If someone is sitting in front of you at a light that turns green, and they don't go right away - you don't honk. That's rude.
posted by vitabellosi at 5:29 PM on December 29, 2014 [6 favorites]
posted by vitabellosi at 5:29 PM on December 29, 2014 [6 favorites]
I grew up in a town in Oregon of about 4000 people, and my family is still there. To me it was small, but I'm not totally sure what your criteria are.
Aside from what you mentioned (only one stoplight, and only got its' first chain restaurant -- a Subway -- two years ago), I immediately thought of the towns' economic reliance on a single business or industry. In the case of this town, there's a plywood lumber mill that employs a sizable chunk of the population either directly or indirectly (through related and complementary businesses). Every few years, there are rumblings of layoffs or mill closures, and the entire town braces itself for the worst.
Another thing is that the sense of distance is a bit different. Living in SoCal now, I don't think twice about driving 30 minutes to a place to eat, or 45 minutes to work. But growing up, our once-a-month trek to the next town 20 minutes away was a pretty serious trip!
posted by cheeken at 5:30 PM on December 29, 2014 [6 favorites]
Aside from what you mentioned (only one stoplight, and only got its' first chain restaurant -- a Subway -- two years ago), I immediately thought of the towns' economic reliance on a single business or industry. In the case of this town, there's a plywood lumber mill that employs a sizable chunk of the population either directly or indirectly (through related and complementary businesses). Every few years, there are rumblings of layoffs or mill closures, and the entire town braces itself for the worst.
Another thing is that the sense of distance is a bit different. Living in SoCal now, I don't think twice about driving 30 minutes to a place to eat, or 45 minutes to work. But growing up, our once-a-month trek to the next town 20 minutes away was a pretty serious trip!
posted by cheeken at 5:30 PM on December 29, 2014 [6 favorites]
If it is a small town that's dry or has a strong Temperance tradition or a traditional Temperance church (Methodist, Baptist, Anabaptist), and you are a drinker, you will have to close your blinds before you can have a beer if you're a respectable adult homeowner with a job and don't want to seem irresponsible.
Your neighbors will all know you are having a beer anyway, because your blinds are closed at 6 p.m. on a weeknight.
If you would like to drink a beer in public, like say at a restaurant, you will have to drive 45 miles and ask for a booth. You still stand a 50/50 shot of getting seen.
Thirty years ago (still in some places, I'm sure) if it was a Catholic small town, everyone -- everyone -- knew when you last went to Confession. Smart teenagers went weekly so their parents didn't get suspicious when they started having sex.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:37 PM on December 29, 2014 [12 favorites]
Your neighbors will all know you are having a beer anyway, because your blinds are closed at 6 p.m. on a weeknight.
If you would like to drink a beer in public, like say at a restaurant, you will have to drive 45 miles and ask for a booth. You still stand a 50/50 shot of getting seen.
Thirty years ago (still in some places, I'm sure) if it was a Catholic small town, everyone -- everyone -- knew when you last went to Confession. Smart teenagers went weekly so their parents didn't get suspicious when they started having sex.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:37 PM on December 29, 2014 [12 favorites]
There still are dry counties. Sometimes surrounded by other dry counties. With people watching the liquor stores on the borders to make sure people don't carry too much beer back with them.
You might have to drive an hour to see a movie, or shop at a mall.
Getting used to knowing which curves in the road have chicken houses behind them, so you can switch your AC vent off before you get there.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 5:38 PM on December 29, 2014 [5 favorites]
You might have to drive an hour to see a movie, or shop at a mall.
Getting used to knowing which curves in the road have chicken houses behind them, so you can switch your AC vent off before you get there.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 5:38 PM on December 29, 2014 [5 favorites]
Local celebrities include: pastors, politicians, valedictorians, varsity high school football players, small business owners who own big houses, etc. And if you're a local celebrity, everyone in the town knows about you and your family.
posted by mellophone at 5:39 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by mellophone at 5:39 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
The town my grandmother lives in is small enough that until very recently I didn't even have to put her street name on the envelope in order to send her mail (and I think now I only have to for the benefit of the postal service between here and there -- her local postie certainly doesn't need it).
A while back when she had some heart trouble, news got to my uncle so fast that he beat her ambulance to the county hospital.
posted by dorque at 5:41 PM on December 29, 2014 [7 favorites]
A while back when she had some heart trouble, news got to my uncle so fast that he beat her ambulance to the county hospital.
posted by dorque at 5:41 PM on December 29, 2014 [7 favorites]
Oh, and in my different small town, I needed to get some paperwork from the town clerk one time, and it turned out the "clerk's office" was actually some guy's barn.
posted by dorque at 5:43 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by dorque at 5:43 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
Nothing is secret. Nothing.
posted by winna at 5:45 PM on December 29, 2014 [18 favorites]
posted by winna at 5:45 PM on December 29, 2014 [18 favorites]
The only restaurant in town is the deli counter at the hardware shop
The tire shop is a gossip clearinghouse
When the local busybody gets cancer and becomes housebound, the drama level goes down 75%
The fire department and EMT/ambulance service is 100% volunteer
A significant portion of aforementioned fire department's funding comes from selling venison stew
posted by Jacqueline at 5:54 PM on December 29, 2014 [6 favorites]
The tire shop is a gossip clearinghouse
When the local busybody gets cancer and becomes housebound, the drama level goes down 75%
The fire department and EMT/ambulance service is 100% volunteer
A significant portion of aforementioned fire department's funding comes from selling venison stew
posted by Jacqueline at 5:54 PM on December 29, 2014 [6 favorites]
Good call on the dry counties. Laurel County, KY, where Husbunny is from is dry, although a few years ago, they allowed restaurants to sell drinks. There was a guy they called a bootlegger who would come in from Richmond, KY with cases of beer.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 5:55 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 5:55 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
Oh! In my little hometown all the old retired men go up to the single restaurant in town that serves breakfast every single morning for a gathering known as "Coffee." No women allowed! This is the main way the previous day's gossip is disseminated throughout town. Very efficient.
posted by something something at 5:59 PM on December 29, 2014 [18 favorites]
posted by something something at 5:59 PM on December 29, 2014 [18 favorites]
Teenage hangouts in random spots; for example, a Wal Mart parking lot, a Wendy's parking lot, or other places where your friends might work.
The corollary to this is that there will be a spot (often the gravel pit) where the kids go to drink and misbehave. Everyone knows but it's allowed unless things get out of hand.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:01 PM on December 29, 2014 [11 favorites]
The corollary to this is that there will be a spot (often the gravel pit) where the kids go to drink and misbehave. Everyone knows but it's allowed unless things get out of hand.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:01 PM on December 29, 2014 [11 favorites]
In my cousins' small town many years ago, he did a bunch of renovation work for a farmer and got half a cow as payment.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 6:02 PM on December 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 6:02 PM on December 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
Oh, goodness, you pull in to the gas station and there's a tractor at the next pump. You know the farmer driving it, because he used this very machine to pull your much smaller tractor out of the mud last spring. Lost and found ads in the local weekly freebie paper include announcements of missing goats and cows. No hunting on Sundays... but it's a great day to sight your rifle in before deer season starts. The Good Women of town run the benefit events -- festivals, rummage sales, used book sales -- and not only have they all known each other since Hector was a pup, but they have a silent competition over who bakes the best sweets. Places that aren't there anymore still serve as markers when giving directions ("You turn at the Jamesway," the folks say, even though that plaza was bulldozed 20 years ago). The grocery store run is a social event, and chances are that cashier is the child of someone who has sold you something/fixed your car/done your hair. (Cashiers also know my kids -- often by name -- when I send them in to the store to buy milk.) The burly men at the ag store have learned not to offer help with feed sacks because they remember that I like to carry them myself. And finally, the town rummage sale is like the collective attic, all old 8-tracks and little china figurines and decorations of Christmases past, which all feels homey and sweet until in unpacking the box someone quietly dropped off, you come across handcuffs and a souvenir coconut bra. Then the Good Women spirit the handcuffs away to the respectability of the trash can and make you, the new kid wear the coconuts, because you are From Away and want to be provisionally accepted, and they laugh.
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:04 PM on December 29, 2014 [17 favorites]
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:04 PM on December 29, 2014 [17 favorites]
Oh, and the barter economy is alive and well. Acceptable alternative forms of payment for purchasing tires and auto repairs: guns, ammo, crossbows, vehicles, venison, 1/4 of a cow, Avon products, moonshine...
And everyone HAS to drive because the nearest public transportation is 20+ miles away. Hence the willingness to accept barter as payment for car repair because the repair shop owner literally holds local people's livelihoods and even their very lives in his hands.
For more traditional payment methods, cash is still much more popular than credit/debit cards.
posted by Jacqueline at 6:04 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
And everyone HAS to drive because the nearest public transportation is 20+ miles away. Hence the willingness to accept barter as payment for car repair because the repair shop owner literally holds local people's livelihoods and even their very lives in his hands.
For more traditional payment methods, cash is still much more popular than credit/debit cards.
posted by Jacqueline at 6:04 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
"Mudding" is one of the most popular pastimes for young people
posted by Jacqueline at 6:06 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by Jacqueline at 6:06 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
"I'd better check you for ticks" is standard flirting repertoire
posted by Jacqueline at 6:08 PM on December 29, 2014 [13 favorites]
posted by Jacqueline at 6:08 PM on December 29, 2014 [13 favorites]
9,000 - Everything (grocery, hardware, restaurants, train station) in walking distance. Our town has everything you need but you go out of town for things you want.
posted by notned at 6:11 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by notned at 6:11 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
Things that aren't exclusive to small towns:
Opening day of deer season is a company holiday (note: also applies to Detroit auto factories).
I once saw an older guy come back in to a Radio Shack and tip the young lady working at the store with a Mason jar of moonshine. This was in a town of 30,000 though.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:17 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
Opening day of deer season is a company holiday (note: also applies to Detroit auto factories).
I once saw an older guy come back in to a Radio Shack and tip the young lady working at the store with a Mason jar of moonshine. This was in a town of 30,000 though.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:17 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
We don't lock our cars or houses. Many people leave their car running outside convenience stores (I wish they wouldn't, because it's wasteful).
When you get a delivery from the appliance store, multiple neighbors call or text to find out what you got.
Entries in the police log are hIlariously dull. Suspicious car on street: police investigate. Turns out it was a man taking a nap.
posted by theredpen at 6:19 PM on December 29, 2014 [8 favorites]
When you get a delivery from the appliance store, multiple neighbors call or text to find out what you got.
Entries in the police log are hIlariously dull. Suspicious car on street: police investigate. Turns out it was a man taking a nap.
posted by theredpen at 6:19 PM on December 29, 2014 [8 favorites]
Speaking of the police log: Cows are always getting loose onto the road.
posted by jeudi at 6:21 PM on December 29, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by jeudi at 6:21 PM on December 29, 2014 [4 favorites]
Oh and even after 16 years, this isn't "our" house -- it's the old Hill house. The Hills sold it about 30 years and two owners ago.
And a neighbor shot a deer. On our damn street.
posted by theredpen at 6:23 PM on December 29, 2014 [8 favorites]
And a neighbor shot a deer. On our damn street.
posted by theredpen at 6:23 PM on December 29, 2014 [8 favorites]
Oh and even after 16 years, this isn't "our" house -- it's the old Hill house. The Hills sold it about 30 years and two owners ago.
Truth.
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:29 PM on December 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
Truth.
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:29 PM on December 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
Another from my cousin's hometown, around Christmas one year we spent out there. Might have been Christmas Eve? I was only there one year but it was the same every year pretty much. There was this sort of roving party at everyone's house every year. Like, one person has made a skating rink in their backyard so almost all the kids are there for the afternoon while most of the parents are at home or just having adult time. Then everyone goes over to someone else's house for hot chocolate and cookies and a movie or a nap or whatever, then there's a potluck at someone else's house, then maybe drinks for grownups and a bonfire somewhere else, then the kids start crashing mostly in clusters and most of the adults drink and play cards into the night. Meanwhile random bunches of people are sort of wandering in and out of a rotating assortment of everyone else's houses for tea or cookies or lunch or whatnot, and there's usually one place where the teenagers/youngest adults sort of hang out together for at least part of the night. And it's never formally organized, it just works out. Oh and kids would just wander willy-nilly all over the place from one house to another. Really kind of amazing time.
This was in literally a one-stop-sign town, 25 years ago though. Oh! The convenience store still rents videos. Everyone over the age of three seconds knows the exact schedule of the single train/bus/ferry that comes to town. As with Christmas, it seemed like no parents ever paid any attention where kids were but always knew somehow. If you have a death in the family, the rest of the town will feed you for the next week. Usually casseroles. I'm not sure what weddings were like there. You can just drop in on people but you should usually bring food.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 6:30 PM on December 29, 2014
This was in literally a one-stop-sign town, 25 years ago though. Oh! The convenience store still rents videos. Everyone over the age of three seconds knows the exact schedule of the single train/bus/ferry that comes to town. As with Christmas, it seemed like no parents ever paid any attention where kids were but always knew somehow. If you have a death in the family, the rest of the town will feed you for the next week. Usually casseroles. I'm not sure what weddings were like there. You can just drop in on people but you should usually bring food.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 6:30 PM on December 29, 2014
Family and neighbors enter through the back door and think nothing of peering through your windows from the outside in, hands shielding the glare on the glass, to see if you're home. Everyone knocks. Doorbells go un-dinged.
People know each other's cars.
posted by mochapickle at 6:37 PM on December 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
People know each other's cars.
posted by mochapickle at 6:37 PM on December 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
If you're under the age of maybe 18 and you are male, any home you arrive in you will more or less instantly be offered food. Although in my ex's small town a few years ago we were both over 20 and his grandmother insisted on making us pancakes and bacon and toast and eggs etc etc etc at somewhere after midnight when we finally arrived.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 6:39 PM on December 29, 2014
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 6:39 PM on December 29, 2014
In the very small town I lived in there was a guy whose entire job was to drive a bobcat through the village. In summer it was fitted with rotating sweepers and he swept the streets at the curb. In winter it was fitted with a plow and he plowed the sidewalks. Guy has a full-time job, job security, and a pension waiting for him.
posted by headnsouth at 6:41 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by headnsouth at 6:41 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
I once had a business meeting in a very small town in Ohio with someone I had never met before. None of the buildings had numbers on them, and I couldn't figure out where I was supposed to be. I drove up and down the road several times trying to find the right spot until a lady ran out in the street and flagged me down. She was the person I was meeting with. I asked how she knew it was me, and she said because she didn't recognize the car.
posted by OrangeDisk at 6:48 PM on December 29, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by OrangeDisk at 6:48 PM on December 29, 2014 [5 favorites]
Oh, there are thousands of them..
posted by Nerd of the North at 6:48 PM on December 29, 2014 [14 favorites]
- Extensive secondary non-cash economies that are necessary for the community to function.
- Fundraising raffles where the prize is a hunting rifle or an outboard motor.
- Nth-ing the "everybody recognizes everybody else's car and waves when passing each other traveling in different directions."
- One that strikes me as strange because I didn't grow up with it and haven't seen it elsewhere. (May be unique to my region, and/or an artifact of local geographic conditions -- a fair number of people around here commute to town by skiff, not car..) When you buy a carton of eggs at the grocery store, the bagger takes a roll of masking tape and tapes the carton securely shut for travel.
- Everybody is expected to know people not only by name but by relation and they may be referred to as such: "Joe's cousin" or "Mary's ex."
- Disambiguation, when necessary, is not done by last name but by addition of a descriptor to a first name, e.g. "Big Mike", "Dave the barber."
- Lack of full-time specialty service businesses, but with a word-of-mouth network about someone who can serve in nearly any economic niche. i.e. you can't look in the paper and find a place that does reupholstery or clock repair but if you ask around you'll find out that Rhonda does upholstery in her spare time and Mr. Morgan fixes old clocks but has to order the parts.
- Strange small combo businesses, e.g. espresso plus taxidermy, often with odd hours. My town has a vacuum repair store that also sells fudge (a removable letter sign in their window proclaims: "fudge is not just for breakfast any more") For some reason they also sell Japanese sandals.
posted by Nerd of the North at 6:48 PM on December 29, 2014 [14 favorites]
You can still run a tab at a shop or the drugstore. People give directions that make no sense if you've not always lived there, like "take a left where the barn used to be." There is a good chance you are related to your postman*, unless you have to pick up your mail at the post office.
This may just be an Irish thing, I can't remember anymore.
posted by DarlingBri at 6:50 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
This may just be an Irish thing, I can't remember anymore.
posted by DarlingBri at 6:50 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
Build in extra time when running errands to gossip with everyone you run into.
If you work in a semi-public job (at the restaurant for example) be on your best behavior in public otherwise your mother will hear about it.
posted by pintapicasso at 6:59 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
If you work in a semi-public job (at the restaurant for example) be on your best behavior in public otherwise your mother will hear about it.
posted by pintapicasso at 6:59 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
(I think a lot of this is going to be regional, but my responses are thinking of Indiana, towns of 300 and 2,500, county population of 15,000.)
There are a handful of multi-generational, multi-household family clans in the county that are known by name and most everyone belongs to one or more of them in some way or another (and everyone knows everyone else's relation to these families, even if names have been changed or people have moved away and back again.)
You're not really "from there" unless your family has been there for a couple generations. Even if you were born there.
The county fair is a really big deal, everyone goes. And high school sports.
The county newspaper where I grew up used to have a section called 'where the sirens went' that detailed the story behind every siren that had happened over the past week.
Corn detassling is a rite of passage teenage job.
Driving 20 minutes to get groceries from Wal-Mart or another big chain because your town doesn't have any type of grocery store any more.
posted by geegollygosh at 7:07 PM on December 29, 2014 [4 favorites]
There are a handful of multi-generational, multi-household family clans in the county that are known by name and most everyone belongs to one or more of them in some way or another (and everyone knows everyone else's relation to these families, even if names have been changed or people have moved away and back again.)
You're not really "from there" unless your family has been there for a couple generations. Even if you were born there.
The county fair is a really big deal, everyone goes. And high school sports.
The county newspaper where I grew up used to have a section called 'where the sirens went' that detailed the story behind every siren that had happened over the past week.
Corn detassling is a rite of passage teenage job.
Driving 20 minutes to get groceries from Wal-Mart or another big chain because your town doesn't have any type of grocery store any more.
posted by geegollygosh at 7:07 PM on December 29, 2014 [4 favorites]
dorque: "it turned out the "clerk's office" was actually some guy's barn."
"Post office" might be some lady's front porch. My friend's mom got paid by the government for 30 years to run the post office off her front porch. (Part-time wages only.)
MonkeyToes: "Places that aren't there anymore still serve as markers when giving directions ("You turn at the Jamesway," the folks say, even though that plaza was bulldozed 20 years ago). "
IF I NEVER GET DIRECTIONS LIKE THIS AGAIN IN MY LIFE IT WILL BE TOO SOON. And teenagers will give you directions references places that were demolished 30 years before they were born! "Turn left where Hector's Drugstore used to be --" "Hector's was demolished in 1972 and you were born in 2000." "Well, sure -- turn where it USED to be."
Lots of high school kids are volunteer firefighters or EMTs; they all check their beepers when they hear a siren. They get to leave class if there's a fire. This may be part of the appeal.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:12 PM on December 29, 2014 [9 favorites]
"Post office" might be some lady's front porch. My friend's mom got paid by the government for 30 years to run the post office off her front porch. (Part-time wages only.)
MonkeyToes: "Places that aren't there anymore still serve as markers when giving directions ("You turn at the Jamesway," the folks say, even though that plaza was bulldozed 20 years ago). "
IF I NEVER GET DIRECTIONS LIKE THIS AGAIN IN MY LIFE IT WILL BE TOO SOON. And teenagers will give you directions references places that were demolished 30 years before they were born! "Turn left where Hector's Drugstore used to be --" "Hector's was demolished in 1972 and you were born in 2000." "Well, sure -- turn where it USED to be."
Lots of high school kids are volunteer firefighters or EMTs; they all check their beepers when they hear a siren. They get to leave class if there's a fire. This may be part of the appeal.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:12 PM on December 29, 2014 [9 favorites]
Hilarious crime, e.g., a "stolen" car was just accidentally driven away by a visitor who got in the wrong one (all cars had the keys in the ignitions, natch) or a missing tractor was borrowed by a neighbor.
Kids are good at talking to people of all ages because they don't have enough critical mass to avoid older people or live in a pop culture world.
Carhardts are always acceptable attire. Women wear quilted coats.
Barn cats, including those invited inside by soft-hearted family members.
Fatalism about vehicle wrecks, whether car, truck, snow mobile, jet ski or boat.
And in the fall, if you see a bunch of guys standing around by a truck bed nodding appreciatively, it will contain a huge buck.
posted by carmicha at 7:20 PM on December 29, 2014 [10 favorites]
Kids are good at talking to people of all ages because they don't have enough critical mass to avoid older people or live in a pop culture world.
Carhardts are always acceptable attire. Women wear quilted coats.
Barn cats, including those invited inside by soft-hearted family members.
Fatalism about vehicle wrecks, whether car, truck, snow mobile, jet ski or boat.
And in the fall, if you see a bunch of guys standing around by a truck bed nodding appreciatively, it will contain a huge buck.
posted by carmicha at 7:20 PM on December 29, 2014 [10 favorites]
High school clubs are 4H or FFA (Future Farmers of America).
In my dad's home county: fewer than 6000 residents, no McDonald's, no grocery store, not a single traffic light that goes red-yellow-green. When the corn is harvested, you can see all the houses for miles.
posted by ocherdraco at 7:25 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
In my dad's home county: fewer than 6000 residents, no McDonald's, no grocery store, not a single traffic light that goes red-yellow-green. When the corn is harvested, you can see all the houses for miles.
posted by ocherdraco at 7:25 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
The fire department and EMT/ambulance service is 100% volunteer
Yep, and you look out the window and across the valley when the siren sounds, because it's going to be somebody you know.
You "drive around back" of motels if you think your husband is having an affair-and you know what car she drives. Other townspeople might know what's going on because they saw his truck drive by, and then her car.
The party place where the teens hang out has a strange name like "Chicken's Asshole" or "God-Damned Beach" (nowhere near water) or "The Rocks" or "The Crick" (both near water) and for fights after school you "meet at the Acid Tree."
posted by vitabellosi at 7:27 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yep, and you look out the window and across the valley when the siren sounds, because it's going to be somebody you know.
You "drive around back" of motels if you think your husband is having an affair-and you know what car she drives. Other townspeople might know what's going on because they saw his truck drive by, and then her car.
The party place where the teens hang out has a strange name like "Chicken's Asshole" or "God-Damned Beach" (nowhere near water) or "The Rocks" or "The Crick" (both near water) and for fights after school you "meet at the Acid Tree."
posted by vitabellosi at 7:27 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
If they say "the Mexican place" you know exactly what that means because there's only one Mexican restaurant in town. Probably the only ethnic, non-chain eatery, too.
People get all their news/information/gossip at "the coffee shop" that basically everyone in the town goes to in the morning.
If a politician holds an event, or if the town has some sort of a civic gathering, it is held at the parking lot of a McDonalds.
posted by AppleTurnover at 7:34 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
People get all their news/information/gossip at "the coffee shop" that basically everyone in the town goes to in the morning.
If a politician holds an event, or if the town has some sort of a civic gathering, it is held at the parking lot of a McDonalds.
posted by AppleTurnover at 7:34 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
The police log will be published in the paper.
Likely the internet connections will be available, but slow and expensive.
A lot of people will be connected to agriculture (obviously depending on where you are located), but they will definitely have a different connection to food and where it comes from. I've also heard that rural kids have a better understanding of science just due to spending more time outside.
posted by aetg at 7:37 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
Likely the internet connections will be available, but slow and expensive.
A lot of people will be connected to agriculture (obviously depending on where you are located), but they will definitely have a different connection to food and where it comes from. I've also heard that rural kids have a better understanding of science just due to spending more time outside.
posted by aetg at 7:37 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
Nobody uses turn signals when they drive because “everyone knows where you’re going.”
A group getting together socially ends up harvesting the host’s tobacco crop for the afternoon, and putting it up in the shed, to help him out. No one expects payment.
And this one I love: You wrote a check for $1,200 when you had $103 in your account and the bank honored it because they knew you and they knew you would be good for it.
posted by megatherium at 7:39 PM on December 29, 2014
A group getting together socially ends up harvesting the host’s tobacco crop for the afternoon, and putting it up in the shed, to help him out. No one expects payment.
And this one I love: You wrote a check for $1,200 when you had $103 in your account and the bank honored it because they knew you and they knew you would be good for it.
posted by megatherium at 7:39 PM on December 29, 2014
I attended school fifth grade through graduation in a very small Florida town, e.g. population of less than 2000 in the city proper, a high school that consistently turned out graduating classes of around 100 students, etc. The population skewed pretty elderly.
If your family has been around a small town for any significant number of generations, older people will tend to reminisce about your grandparents etc. when they meet you. My grandfather was the family doctor in town for several decades and passed away years before I was born. I got a lot of "oh, hey, you're Dr. Gymnopedist's grandson, I remember that time he took a fish hook out of my hand!" The fish hook removal thing actually happened to my other grandfather. If you're young, you'll find yourself piecing together old relationships through this sort of recollection. My piano teacher lived next door to my dad when the two of them were both kids. Among older folks, most houses are "the old $LAST_NAME house."
Related: if you have any older siblings, relatives, etc., a lot of your teachers probably remember them. It's also a lot more likely for you or one of your friends to be related to one of your teachers.
Your school will have limitations but the faculty will tend to be more involved. When I graduated, we had just started to have a couple handfuls of AP classes. You could also commute 45 minutes away for dual enrollment classes. My Spanish teacher used to teach in a larger school, and he said that it was nice to see the same faces each year, i.e. he saw his estudiantes de español from Spanish 1 through third year AP Spanish vs. at the larger school where he wouldn't have any familiar faces, year-to-year. Some of your teachers will keep tabs on you after you graduate, if you let them. Me and a few other graduates of my high school just had our old English teacher drive up to have dinner with us at the university we're attending.
Everybody knows just about everything about everyone, especially in high school.
Teen pregnancy is more prevalent, I think, probably owing to generally more conservative attitudes in rural places which results in a lot less information about contraception passed down to teenagers. Also, if you want to buy condoms, someone from school works at every grocery store, convenience store, etc. It tends to get around. See above. I think my senior class had a pregnancy attrition rate of about 10% over four years of high school. One of the kids on the football team had actually fathered 3 or 4 children before graduating and no this is not an apocryphal rumor thing.
I think my town's fast food options were only Wendy's and Subway and also a Domino's. You got sick of the only options pretty fast. A few of my friends from back home can't stand Wendy's even if they've long since moved.
Having no car/transportation always sucks, but it really sucks if you're a kid in high school in a small town. The nearest Wal-Mart was like 45 minutes away. Making a trip to the nearest slightly larger town to pick things up is a day long affair. There is no "just run to walmart for a few things and be back in 15 minutes." My town was an hour away from nearly everything. If you lived in town, you might be lucky enough to be walking/biking distance from a few friends, but if you were in any of the surrounding much smaller towns and sprawling dirt-road type neighborhoods, just about anybody in your peer group was a 10 minute drive away minimum.
My town has a "Catfish Festival" every year, the first Saturday of every April. It fulfills a similar function to Christmas, i.e. most people will try to get back to town for it even if they live a distance away. It's a good time to see old friends, family, etc. I have no idea how "coming down for Catfish" became a thing, but it's a pretty nice thing.
Teen drug use becomes prevalent if the place is dull enough. My hometown was pretty lacking w/r/t things for young people to do. It was mostly limited to lots of potsmoking/drinking, though, which I guess is pretty standard among high school aged kids. I can only recall a handful of people who used anything considered "harder," although I can name a couple of old acquaintances who still live there and are now selling cocaine. The combination of not a lot of people can smoke in their homes because parents + there are a lot of dirt road nooks and crannies means the typical M.O. for potsmoking was to pick up like 3 friends, find an obscure dirt road, abandoned property, etc, etc, park your car and either a. hotbox the hell out of the car because it's yours or b. sit on the dash and smoke there because someone's parents own it. I think the drug use was also partly a quirk of my town's location -- it was about an hour from nearly every major city in central/north ish Florida (Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Orlando, Daytona Beach, etc., etc.), making it a pretty good hub for like transporting trafficking etc.
Another option re: drug use was to find an older graduated friend who had his own place and go there. There was a like 6 month period of time where this nice dude had kind of an open house policy where people a few degrees of acquaintance from him would come and go whenever and chill and smoke etc. but gradually everyone began to know about it and it eventually became too much to handle and he moved etc. I still keep in touch with that guy.
Your dating pool is pretty small in high school, rendering the usual stigma against dating your friends' exes impractical (people still get upset about it, but it happens a lot more, I think). Dating can be a little like musical chairs. Good luck avoiding your ex at school.
It was a lot easier to skirt authority at my school than in more urban schools, I think. For example, if you were in dual enrollment, "having to get to a dual enrollment class" at the community college 45 minutes or so away was pretty much a free pass to leave school or be in the hallways because a. school administrators assumed you were a good kid if you were in dual enrollment and b. they didn't want to screw with your ability to get to dual enrollment stuff. There was a lot more leeway than you'd find in more urban schools.
I hope this helps you and that I haven't gone into unnecessary detail; I tried to err on the side of too much detail because you asked this question for a fiction project.
posted by Gymnopedist at 7:53 PM on December 29, 2014 [15 favorites]
If your family has been around a small town for any significant number of generations, older people will tend to reminisce about your grandparents etc. when they meet you. My grandfather was the family doctor in town for several decades and passed away years before I was born. I got a lot of "oh, hey, you're Dr. Gymnopedist's grandson, I remember that time he took a fish hook out of my hand!" The fish hook removal thing actually happened to my other grandfather. If you're young, you'll find yourself piecing together old relationships through this sort of recollection. My piano teacher lived next door to my dad when the two of them were both kids. Among older folks, most houses are "the old $LAST_NAME house."
Related: if you have any older siblings, relatives, etc., a lot of your teachers probably remember them. It's also a lot more likely for you or one of your friends to be related to one of your teachers.
Your school will have limitations but the faculty will tend to be more involved. When I graduated, we had just started to have a couple handfuls of AP classes. You could also commute 45 minutes away for dual enrollment classes. My Spanish teacher used to teach in a larger school, and he said that it was nice to see the same faces each year, i.e. he saw his estudiantes de español from Spanish 1 through third year AP Spanish vs. at the larger school where he wouldn't have any familiar faces, year-to-year. Some of your teachers will keep tabs on you after you graduate, if you let them. Me and a few other graduates of my high school just had our old English teacher drive up to have dinner with us at the university we're attending.
Everybody knows just about everything about everyone, especially in high school.
Teen pregnancy is more prevalent, I think, probably owing to generally more conservative attitudes in rural places which results in a lot less information about contraception passed down to teenagers. Also, if you want to buy condoms, someone from school works at every grocery store, convenience store, etc. It tends to get around. See above. I think my senior class had a pregnancy attrition rate of about 10% over four years of high school. One of the kids on the football team had actually fathered 3 or 4 children before graduating and no this is not an apocryphal rumor thing.
I think my town's fast food options were only Wendy's and Subway and also a Domino's. You got sick of the only options pretty fast. A few of my friends from back home can't stand Wendy's even if they've long since moved.
Having no car/transportation always sucks, but it really sucks if you're a kid in high school in a small town. The nearest Wal-Mart was like 45 minutes away. Making a trip to the nearest slightly larger town to pick things up is a day long affair. There is no "just run to walmart for a few things and be back in 15 minutes." My town was an hour away from nearly everything. If you lived in town, you might be lucky enough to be walking/biking distance from a few friends, but if you were in any of the surrounding much smaller towns and sprawling dirt-road type neighborhoods, just about anybody in your peer group was a 10 minute drive away minimum.
My town has a "Catfish Festival" every year, the first Saturday of every April. It fulfills a similar function to Christmas, i.e. most people will try to get back to town for it even if they live a distance away. It's a good time to see old friends, family, etc. I have no idea how "coming down for Catfish" became a thing, but it's a pretty nice thing.
Teen drug use becomes prevalent if the place is dull enough. My hometown was pretty lacking w/r/t things for young people to do. It was mostly limited to lots of potsmoking/drinking, though, which I guess is pretty standard among high school aged kids. I can only recall a handful of people who used anything considered "harder," although I can name a couple of old acquaintances who still live there and are now selling cocaine. The combination of not a lot of people can smoke in their homes because parents + there are a lot of dirt road nooks and crannies means the typical M.O. for potsmoking was to pick up like 3 friends, find an obscure dirt road, abandoned property, etc, etc, park your car and either a. hotbox the hell out of the car because it's yours or b. sit on the dash and smoke there because someone's parents own it. I think the drug use was also partly a quirk of my town's location -- it was about an hour from nearly every major city in central/north ish Florida (Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Orlando, Daytona Beach, etc., etc.), making it a pretty good hub for like transporting trafficking etc.
Another option re: drug use was to find an older graduated friend who had his own place and go there. There was a like 6 month period of time where this nice dude had kind of an open house policy where people a few degrees of acquaintance from him would come and go whenever and chill and smoke etc. but gradually everyone began to know about it and it eventually became too much to handle and he moved etc. I still keep in touch with that guy.
Your dating pool is pretty small in high school, rendering the usual stigma against dating your friends' exes impractical (people still get upset about it, but it happens a lot more, I think). Dating can be a little like musical chairs. Good luck avoiding your ex at school.
It was a lot easier to skirt authority at my school than in more urban schools, I think. For example, if you were in dual enrollment, "having to get to a dual enrollment class" at the community college 45 minutes or so away was pretty much a free pass to leave school or be in the hallways because a. school administrators assumed you were a good kid if you were in dual enrollment and b. they didn't want to screw with your ability to get to dual enrollment stuff. There was a lot more leeway than you'd find in more urban schools.
I hope this helps you and that I haven't gone into unnecessary detail; I tried to err on the side of too much detail because you asked this question for a fiction project.
posted by Gymnopedist at 7:53 PM on December 29, 2014 [15 favorites]
When someone dies, the services are at a church or the local funeral home. Then everyone goes to the cemetery for the gravesite services, unless you are too old to stand up that long or are one of the church ladies who are providing the huge meal afterward at the church for all the family. If the deceased is elderly, there are lots of relatives there from out of town, and since it's the only time to socialize and get caught up, it's a nice get-together with great food.
If you are driving down the road and meet a funeral procession, you pull your car over to the side of the road until all the cars have passed, as a show of respect. Whether or not you knew the deceased.
posted by raisingsand at 8:11 PM on December 29, 2014 [7 favorites]
If you are driving down the road and meet a funeral procession, you pull your car over to the side of the road until all the cars have passed, as a show of respect. Whether or not you knew the deceased.
posted by raisingsand at 8:11 PM on December 29, 2014 [7 favorites]
Parades are about ten minutes long and may include the town's public works equipment in addition to local pageant winners, scouts, little league teams, and bands made up of either middle schoolers or very old people.
You tend to know your state rep, school board members and council people from everywhere else - they are your banker, sit next to you at kids sporting events, run the local charities. You may help them run for office by having a hand painted sign in your front yard or accompany them on home visits.
In Maine, about twenty years ago when 911 was updated any "road" with more than one residence needed its own name. This might include family complexes that shared a dirt driveway. People got to name their roads and the towns put up street signs. Much creativity ensued.
Older roads often have the names of people you meet, or are split into multiple parts where the road once changed or a highway went through. So "Old xxx road" and "New xxx road."
posted by Sukey Says at 8:15 PM on December 29, 2014 [5 favorites]
You tend to know your state rep, school board members and council people from everywhere else - they are your banker, sit next to you at kids sporting events, run the local charities. You may help them run for office by having a hand painted sign in your front yard or accompany them on home visits.
In Maine, about twenty years ago when 911 was updated any "road" with more than one residence needed its own name. This might include family complexes that shared a dirt driveway. People got to name their roads and the towns put up street signs. Much creativity ensued.
Older roads often have the names of people you meet, or are split into multiple parts where the road once changed or a highway went through. So "Old xxx road" and "New xxx road."
posted by Sukey Says at 8:15 PM on December 29, 2014 [5 favorites]
Rural Texas, population somewhere around 100, depending.
There's a festival every year after the cotton harvest. There's also a "Fire ant" festival, which started out as a joke, but hey, another reason to get together, so now it's enshrined, complete with costumes.
Shooting at groundhogs off your back porch. Really. In the vain hope that you'll stop them from eating up your garden (you won't).
My cousin made the newspaper's front page when she won the local shooting competition at 4 years old. She made the front page again when she got her driver's license, and was seen driving around the town square.
Church tends to be the social hub, in absence of festivals, and many will go even if they aren't, strictly speaking, believers. And I saw someone else mentioned it, but all the local men meet up, very early, at the local coffee house for "coffee" and maybe a bite, which is really just their daily chance to talk about all the things.
You can also be a local celebrity if you have any musical instrument talent at all, and will be invited to all the parties if you do (and if you're willing to play for compensation other than money).
posted by Lafe at 8:19 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
There's a festival every year after the cotton harvest. There's also a "Fire ant" festival, which started out as a joke, but hey, another reason to get together, so now it's enshrined, complete with costumes.
Shooting at groundhogs off your back porch. Really. In the vain hope that you'll stop them from eating up your garden (you won't).
My cousin made the newspaper's front page when she won the local shooting competition at 4 years old. She made the front page again when she got her driver's license, and was seen driving around the town square.
Church tends to be the social hub, in absence of festivals, and many will go even if they aren't, strictly speaking, believers. And I saw someone else mentioned it, but all the local men meet up, very early, at the local coffee house for "coffee" and maybe a bite, which is really just their daily chance to talk about all the things.
You can also be a local celebrity if you have any musical instrument talent at all, and will be invited to all the parties if you do (and if you're willing to play for compensation other than money).
posted by Lafe at 8:19 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
Oh, and I just remembered a black market in CB-radio equipment and/or enhancements. Things such as an amplifier for adding more-than-legally-allowed power, or "sound boards" for playing music or sound effects over the waves. These things are probably still going on where cell-phone coverage is spotty, but may be out-dated where it's not.
posted by Lafe at 8:23 PM on December 29, 2014
posted by Lafe at 8:23 PM on December 29, 2014
Grew up in a small Canadian town in the 80s, extended family still lives there.
- I moved away 20 years ago, but neighbours will still notice my car when I visit family, and I have to go "make the rounds" and say hello to everyone, otherwise they will call and ask what's wrong.
- Your family's good reputation partly stems from how well you maintain your loved ones' graves. People notice who hasn't tidied up the family plot in awhile, which graves have fresh flowers, etc.
- Party lines were still available until about 4-5 years ago. My grandparents shared a phone line with their next-door neighbours until the phone company gave them a free private line.
- The local Tim Hortons or McDonalds is where everyone has morning coffee. As several people mentioned above, it's the daily check-in for gossip. My aunt walks me from table to table when I visit so I can "catch up" with everyone (people I see maybe once every three years).
- People drop by all the time without phoning first, so your house always has to look presentable.
posted by third word on a random page at 8:32 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
- I moved away 20 years ago, but neighbours will still notice my car when I visit family, and I have to go "make the rounds" and say hello to everyone, otherwise they will call and ask what's wrong.
- Your family's good reputation partly stems from how well you maintain your loved ones' graves. People notice who hasn't tidied up the family plot in awhile, which graves have fresh flowers, etc.
- Party lines were still available until about 4-5 years ago. My grandparents shared a phone line with their next-door neighbours until the phone company gave them a free private line.
- The local Tim Hortons or McDonalds is where everyone has morning coffee. As several people mentioned above, it's the daily check-in for gossip. My aunt walks me from table to table when I visit so I can "catch up" with everyone (people I see maybe once every three years).
- People drop by all the time without phoning first, so your house always has to look presentable.
posted by third word on a random page at 8:32 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
We stayed at a Super 8 during a reunion one year (which in itself was unusual -- on occasion, we've just stayed with Miss Kathy next door). True story: when we told my family we were staying out there, they said, "Oh, is that the one run by Greeky?" "No, that's Swampy's kid."
Neither Greeky nor Swampy are to be confused with Clip-Clop.
My uncle P. lives in an 1845 house (purchased from my grandparents) that my mom considered "the haunted house" until they moved in when she was in elementary school. The property came with a giant front yard, a dairy barn and a "hired man's house" and backed up on a corn field. Now, the cornfield has turned into a housing development. Every time my mom visits, she says, "I can't get used to seeing lights back there -- seeing into people's kitchens."
I am pretty sure that my grandparents bought their burial plots so they would have a direct line from the cemetery through the cornfield to the big house.
The hired man's house has been occupied by a) the aforementioned hired man, b) my great-grandma (who used to share a room with my mom), c) my uncle P. (who now owns the big house), d) my aunt, e) my OTHER uncle A. and his wife, when they moved back from living overseas, f) my grandparents, when they sold the big house to Uncle P., g) Uncle P.'s adult stepdaughter, h) my great-uncle V., son of my great-grandma.
When my uncle A. moved out, he bought a house six doors down the street.
My mom's best friends lived in the modern house that their family built basically on the front lawn. What I didn't realize until recently was that my mom STILL holds a grudge for the style of the house being so out of place. They built it in... oh, 1958.
My mom's OTHER grandparents lived in the small ranch house on the other end of the driveway.
Any number of festivals: there's both [Meat #1] Days AND [Meat #2] Days, and [Meat #2] Days is also known as the [Something] Festival, which ALSO ends up being a reunion time for the high school classes, every year... but isn't Homecoming.
My uncle P. co-MCs these parades with my uncle J., who is in charge of maintenance at the local retirement home. The unfortunate part of that job is that when a resident has a... toilet-related incident, more often than not my uncle has to send someone to wipe up after their Sunday school leader or piano teacher.
And THEN occasionally news of such incidents comes back to all seven of my mom's siblings.
When my family has big events, my uncle P. borrows chairs from the funeral home.
posted by Madamina at 8:42 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
Neither Greeky nor Swampy are to be confused with Clip-Clop.
My uncle P. lives in an 1845 house (purchased from my grandparents) that my mom considered "the haunted house" until they moved in when she was in elementary school. The property came with a giant front yard, a dairy barn and a "hired man's house" and backed up on a corn field. Now, the cornfield has turned into a housing development. Every time my mom visits, she says, "I can't get used to seeing lights back there -- seeing into people's kitchens."
I am pretty sure that my grandparents bought their burial plots so they would have a direct line from the cemetery through the cornfield to the big house.
The hired man's house has been occupied by a) the aforementioned hired man, b) my great-grandma (who used to share a room with my mom), c) my uncle P. (who now owns the big house), d) my aunt, e) my OTHER uncle A. and his wife, when they moved back from living overseas, f) my grandparents, when they sold the big house to Uncle P., g) Uncle P.'s adult stepdaughter, h) my great-uncle V., son of my great-grandma.
When my uncle A. moved out, he bought a house six doors down the street.
My mom's best friends lived in the modern house that their family built basically on the front lawn. What I didn't realize until recently was that my mom STILL holds a grudge for the style of the house being so out of place. They built it in... oh, 1958.
My mom's OTHER grandparents lived in the small ranch house on the other end of the driveway.
Any number of festivals: there's both [Meat #1] Days AND [Meat #2] Days, and [Meat #2] Days is also known as the [Something] Festival, which ALSO ends up being a reunion time for the high school classes, every year... but isn't Homecoming.
My uncle P. co-MCs these parades with my uncle J., who is in charge of maintenance at the local retirement home. The unfortunate part of that job is that when a resident has a... toilet-related incident, more often than not my uncle has to send someone to wipe up after their Sunday school leader or piano teacher.
And THEN occasionally news of such incidents comes back to all seven of my mom's siblings.
When my family has big events, my uncle P. borrows chairs from the funeral home.
posted by Madamina at 8:42 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
There is probably one popular restaurant that everyone goes to. Visiting it as a local will require several minutes of saying hi to various people you know. This is exacerbated by your place in the town. Someone who does a vital function will probably need ten minutes. I know someone who does not frequent the local establishment because of this. It takes him 15 minutes to sit down.
Local school sets the clock for the town. Homecoming, football games, graduation.
Nthing the barter system comments, and the "doing stuff on the side" comments. There is a handyman in my hometown that nearly half the population owes him something. He takes payment in money, and items. If you need a washer installed, he will take the old one off your hands. Entirely furnished his kid's place he bought when they went to college that way. Will probably sell it for a profit.
Economic patterns are mostly decided by your place in the hierarchy, or the will to leave. I said a silent curse whenever someone pissed me off in high school, May you never leave this town. Because staying was stasis, for good or for ill.
Civic groups still have pull. Kiwanis, Rotary, Masonic Lodge. A little less now, but still there. Will probably hold meetings in the before mentioned restaurant.
posted by zabuni at 9:03 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
Local school sets the clock for the town. Homecoming, football games, graduation.
Nthing the barter system comments, and the "doing stuff on the side" comments. There is a handyman in my hometown that nearly half the population owes him something. He takes payment in money, and items. If you need a washer installed, he will take the old one off your hands. Entirely furnished his kid's place he bought when they went to college that way. Will probably sell it for a profit.
Economic patterns are mostly decided by your place in the hierarchy, or the will to leave. I said a silent curse whenever someone pissed me off in high school, May you never leave this town. Because staying was stasis, for good or for ill.
Civic groups still have pull. Kiwanis, Rotary, Masonic Lodge. A little less now, but still there. Will probably hold meetings in the before mentioned restaurant.
posted by zabuni at 9:03 PM on December 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
This is more meta- than anecdotal, but I've noticed (having grown up in a small town) that people who enjoy, or at least understand, A Prairie Home Companion's "News From Lake Wobegon" (which is a great source of humorous small-town-style anecdotes) nearly always turn out to be people who grew up in small towns; the ones who just don't get it at all seem to generally be people who grew up in larger cities. There's just a wealth of subtext which goes along with the whole thing: it's funny because it reminds you of someone you actually know, or an experience you've had yourself.
There are other famously beloved, literary, small towns; Avonlea from the "Anne of Green Gables" series and Maycomb from "To Kill a Mockingbird" come to mind. Along with public knowledge of everything and everyone being a theme, there seems to be a common idea that your family greatly defines you and that to know you are an "X" is enough. For instance, the "He's a Cunningham" scene from "To Kill a Mockingbird":
There are other famously beloved, literary, small towns; Avonlea from the "Anne of Green Gables" series and Maycomb from "To Kill a Mockingbird" come to mind. Along with public knowledge of everything and everyone being a theme, there seems to be a common idea that your family greatly defines you and that to know you are an "X" is enough. For instance, the "He's a Cunningham" scene from "To Kill a Mockingbird":
I turned around and saw most of the town people and the entire bus delegation looking at me. Miss Caroline and I had conferred twice already, and they were looking at me in the innocent assurance that familiarity breeds understanding.posted by spelunkingplato at 9:12 PM on December 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
I rose graciously on Walter’s behalf: “Ah—Miss Caroline?”
“What is it, Jean Louise?”
“Miss Caroline, he’s a Cunningham.”
I sat back down.
“What, Jean Louise?”
I thought I had made things sufficiently clear. It was clear enough to the rest of us: Walter Cunningham was sitting there lying his head off. He didn’t forget his lunch, he didn’t have any. He had none today nor would he have any tomorrow or the next day. He had probably never seen three quarters together at the same time in his life.
I tried again: “Walter’s one of the Cunninghams, Miss Caroline.”
“I beg your pardon, Jean Louise?”
“That’s okay, ma’am, you’ll get to know all the county folks after a while. The Cunninghams never took anything they can’t pay back—no church baskets and no scrip stamps. They never took anything off of anybody, they get along on what they have. They don’t have much, but they get along on it.”
-Nthing that everyone is related in one way or another (unless they are "newcomers" like my family was).
-In addition to there only being one grocery store, it closes early (7 in my town, 5 in the one of a friend of mine). (And yes, it is a social event.)
-A somber note that I only recently realized was weird: when a young person dies (which is, sadly, all too common), the funeral was in the high school gymnasium rather than the (one) funeral home because it was the only space large enough to accommodate a crowd.
-The first day of deer season, no school.
-My teachers were all either people who had taught there forever (and thus has taught my four older brothers) or people who had just graduated from college and had grown up there (and thus had been in school with my older brothers; "Kent" became "Mr. Huddleston" all of a sudden).
posted by pitrified at 9:51 PM on December 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
-In addition to there only being one grocery store, it closes early (7 in my town, 5 in the one of a friend of mine). (And yes, it is a social event.)
-A somber note that I only recently realized was weird: when a young person dies (which is, sadly, all too common), the funeral was in the high school gymnasium rather than the (one) funeral home because it was the only space large enough to accommodate a crowd.
-The first day of deer season, no school.
-My teachers were all either people who had taught there forever (and thus has taught my four older brothers) or people who had just graduated from college and had grown up there (and thus had been in school with my older brothers; "Kent" became "Mr. Huddleston" all of a sudden).
posted by pitrified at 9:51 PM on December 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
The village newspaper prints blurbs about who has out-of-town guests, for how long, and where they're from.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 9:54 PM on December 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 9:54 PM on December 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
Also: gossip and its dark side. Act I of this episode of This American Life rang especially true to me.
posted by pitrified at 10:04 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by pitrified at 10:04 PM on December 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
As a big city person spending the occasional 1-2 month period living in a small town, one thing I noticed was that stuff you need gets divided into stuff you can buy at the town 40 minutes in one direction vs. the slightly bigger town 75 minutes in the other direction, where you go for that once a month trip for the big shipping trip for the bulk packages of toilet paper, etc. Neither has everything you need. Lots of "are you headed to X?" "No I was headed to Y" in sorting out whether you'd want to go along. Stuff like, one of them has a Pizza Hut vs. the other has a (bad) Chinese restaurant, or little Bobby needs posterboard for a school project, or your fancy-schmancy recipe calls for pita bread become deciding factors. Everyone becomes really knowledgeable about stores' inventory and closing times. (Bob needs some random thing and doesn't want to drive all the way to such-and-such.) Then there was one big city maybe four hours away, with a major airport and university, and nearly every family has one or more adult children now established there.
posted by salvia at 10:05 PM on December 29, 2014 [6 favorites]
posted by salvia at 10:05 PM on December 29, 2014 [6 favorites]
I lived in Barstow years ago, and one of the most striking things was how a suburban street could be missing a house, but instead of a vacant lot there would be a patch of sand that just went on and on, to the horizon. It was a hole in the suburbs that took you straight to Mars. It was like a Magritte painting or something.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 11:41 PM on December 29, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by Ursula Hitler at 11:41 PM on December 29, 2014 [4 favorites]
Employers with crews like landscapers or construction crews will check the County Roster to see who ended up in jail over the weekend and if they should plan to be short some crew members.
posted by humboldt32 at 3:32 AM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by humboldt32 at 3:32 AM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]
At least where I come from, every little town (populations around 40 to a few hundred) has at least one town-wide event per year that brings in people from all over, and for one day (or a weekend) the town is packed with thousands.
posted by hannahelastic at 4:27 AM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by hannahelastic at 4:27 AM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]
This may be a Maine thing: My family moved to the state in 1969, but we're not really "from here." Even my two nieces, who were born here, aren't "from here." (The latter situation is summed up by the saying: "Just because your cat has kittens in the oven, that doesn't make them biscuits.")
More applicable to small towns in general: You live "in town" if you have mail delivered to a street address. Otherwise, you go to the post office to pick up your mail, and it's a big social occasion because you run into everyone you know.
Also: People who live "in town" are connected to a municipal source of water and sewage treatment system. Other residents depend on wells and septic tanks (and life is Not Fun if the well goes dry or the septic tank backs up).
posted by virago at 6:18 AM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]
More applicable to small towns in general: You live "in town" if you have mail delivered to a street address. Otherwise, you go to the post office to pick up your mail, and it's a big social occasion because you run into everyone you know.
Also: People who live "in town" are connected to a municipal source of water and sewage treatment system. Other residents depend on wells and septic tanks (and life is Not Fun if the well goes dry or the septic tank backs up).
posted by virago at 6:18 AM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]
Family and neighbors enter through the back door
The side yard in the region where I live is called the "dooryard" and has the door you're supposed to use, not the front door which is basically never used but looks nice.
When my family has big events, my uncle P. borrows chairs from the funeral home.
When my dad died and we did a memorial service at the house, we borrowed chairs from the Quaker meeting up the street. A lot of stuff in small towns revolves around church even if you're not a person who is religious. There are community suppers there (pretty non-denominational) and bloodmobiles and if there is a disaster like a flood, the church is one of the places you go. All the people who go to church know what church everyone else goes to in a way that is totally opaque to me, a non churchgoer.
I have been in the paper in my local town because I left the country and did something and that was news-y. Everyone gets to be in the paper eventually, you hope it's for something nice. In New England the small towns have town meeting once a year where everyone gets to talk about town things and vote people into (and out of) office and catch up with each other. There's an elaborate hokey pokey with new people where "Where are you from?" means both where did you move here from immediately but where are your people from recently like the past 4-5 generations.
Civic groups and the library are still a big deal. Everyone wants to join the fancy (non-library) book club but they only let in a certain number of people. My town had a stoplight but they took it out because they'd prefer a somewhat confusing intersection to having a stop light in town. When the local music hall got a blinking sign it was a THING and people talked about it in letters to the editor for weeks.
posted by jessamyn at 7:13 AM on December 30, 2014 [5 favorites]
The side yard in the region where I live is called the "dooryard" and has the door you're supposed to use, not the front door which is basically never used but looks nice.
When my family has big events, my uncle P. borrows chairs from the funeral home.
When my dad died and we did a memorial service at the house, we borrowed chairs from the Quaker meeting up the street. A lot of stuff in small towns revolves around church even if you're not a person who is religious. There are community suppers there (pretty non-denominational) and bloodmobiles and if there is a disaster like a flood, the church is one of the places you go. All the people who go to church know what church everyone else goes to in a way that is totally opaque to me, a non churchgoer.
I have been in the paper in my local town because I left the country and did something and that was news-y. Everyone gets to be in the paper eventually, you hope it's for something nice. In New England the small towns have town meeting once a year where everyone gets to talk about town things and vote people into (and out of) office and catch up with each other. There's an elaborate hokey pokey with new people where "Where are you from?" means both where did you move here from immediately but where are your people from recently like the past 4-5 generations.
Civic groups and the library are still a big deal. Everyone wants to join the fancy (non-library) book club but they only let in a certain number of people. My town had a stoplight but they took it out because they'd prefer a somewhat confusing intersection to having a stop light in town. When the local music hall got a blinking sign it was a THING and people talked about it in letters to the editor for weeks.
posted by jessamyn at 7:13 AM on December 30, 2014 [5 favorites]
It's hard to go for a walk (e.g., for exercise), because everyone who passes you in a car offers to give you a lift. Also, your family can live in the town for twenty years and still be known as "the newcomers".
posted by alex1965 at 7:18 AM on December 30, 2014 [5 favorites]
posted by alex1965 at 7:18 AM on December 30, 2014 [5 favorites]
In fall and winter, lots of men walk around in ball caps and hooded camo jackets. Pick-ups are accessorized with stickers indicating approval of particular service branches and firearm/archery suppliers. Allow extra time for transactions at the gas-and-go, because of the three folks ahead of you in line, two of them will spend a minute greeting the cashier by nickname and chatting about sports/weather/family.
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:06 AM on December 30, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:06 AM on December 30, 2014 [1 favorite]
Two of my favorites from living in a small town in Pennsylvania:
- Local guys liked to wear the baseball cap from the local stud/sire service, even when they owned no cattle themselves.
- The wave mentioned above was more often a one-finger-off-the-steering-wheel wave and nod, especially amongst the tough guys.
posted by ldthomps at 8:16 AM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]
- Local guys liked to wear the baseball cap from the local stud/sire service, even when they owned no cattle themselves.
- The wave mentioned above was more often a one-finger-off-the-steering-wheel wave and nod, especially amongst the tough guys.
posted by ldthomps at 8:16 AM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]
Small town, population of ~10 but 10 minutes away from a town of 500. Our mailing address was a different town and zip (the bigger town) than our actual address because staffing was so variable at the local post office. There was only 3 houses "in town," a bar, and the town hall, which served mostly as a parking lot for the plow, the lawn mower, and the fire truck.
For the bigger town: You rent your movies at the gas station, even today because most people's internet (if they have it) is by satellite. The gas station is also half tiny grocery store. There's always one building in town with a constant turnover of new business, most catering to tourists but it's been a bookshop two or three times. They always fail.
If you get into a fight with your brother on the bus the bus driver will call your parents and tell them. Parent-teacher conferences are year round because they will see each other at the park, the gas station, and the liquor store which is of course attached to the bar (and it's drive-up too). The same trucks are parked in the bar parking lot every morning when it opens at ten.
Everyone does the one finger wave and if you don't to your neighbor you'll hear about it one way or another. When driving down gravel roads slow down when you pass houses unless you're that troublemaker Henderson kid.
Every year in June or May raggedy old flat bed trucks that are half themselves and half parts from other trucks go by, held together with baling twine and duct tape, with huge water tanks on the bed. They have no license plate or insurance, but the highway patrol let them go because ranchers are driving them to their hay fields, where they'll get parked in case of fire.
Everybody knows when the highway patrolman is home.
posted by barchan at 8:37 AM on December 30, 2014 [1 favorite]
For the bigger town: You rent your movies at the gas station, even today because most people's internet (if they have it) is by satellite. The gas station is also half tiny grocery store. There's always one building in town with a constant turnover of new business, most catering to tourists but it's been a bookshop two or three times. They always fail.
If you get into a fight with your brother on the bus the bus driver will call your parents and tell them. Parent-teacher conferences are year round because they will see each other at the park, the gas station, and the liquor store which is of course attached to the bar (and it's drive-up too). The same trucks are parked in the bar parking lot every morning when it opens at ten.
Everyone does the one finger wave and if you don't to your neighbor you'll hear about it one way or another. When driving down gravel roads slow down when you pass houses unless you're that troublemaker Henderson kid.
Every year in June or May raggedy old flat bed trucks that are half themselves and half parts from other trucks go by, held together with baling twine and duct tape, with huge water tanks on the bed. They have no license plate or insurance, but the highway patrol let them go because ranchers are driving them to their hay fields, where they'll get parked in case of fire.
Everybody knows when the highway patrolman is home.
posted by barchan at 8:37 AM on December 30, 2014 [1 favorite]
Cribbed from Neal Stephenson, but small towns also only have one of many things. There is The church, The restaurant, The bar, The town busybody (not everyone will necessarily agree on this person's identity, mind you), The plow, The ______.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:45 AM on December 30, 2014
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:45 AM on December 30, 2014
If you're a woman you'll be considered odd if you don't quilt. If you're a man you'll be considered odd if you do quilt.
posted by essexjan at 8:57 AM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by essexjan at 8:57 AM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]
Local guys liked to wear the baseball cap from the local stud/sire service, even when they owned no cattle themselves.
Sire Power. (ldthomps, this sticker is on one of my barn doors.)
posted by MonkeyToes at 9:13 AM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]
Sire Power. (ldthomps, this sticker is on one of my barn doors.)
posted by MonkeyToes at 9:13 AM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]
A family can be outcasts for generations. It can really suck to be from that family, or to be her child. No matter how different you are from the rest of your family, you were never given a chance to prove you weren't a bad kid. You simply were a "bad influence" because your friend's parents had gone to school with your mom or because of some generations-old feud you know little to nothing about.
I could go on for hours, Memail me if you'd like personal stories from that point of view.
posted by MuChao at 10:33 AM on December 30, 2014 [5 favorites]
I could go on for hours, Memail me if you'd like personal stories from that point of view.
posted by MuChao at 10:33 AM on December 30, 2014 [5 favorites]
There may be local traditions that aren't reflected in any wider context. between 1975 and 1990, I lived in 5 towns of 500-1200 people in northern Alabama. One of them celebrated the 4th of July every year by a massive town festival at the state park, at which the local men's club (Lion's club, etc) made multiple giant pots of chicken stew. You could buy a bowl of stew, or take home quarts of stew to freeze. It was both their major fundraiser of the year, and a town tradition, such that the idea of grilling burgers and drinking a beer in your backyard was pretty much unheard of.
Well, drinking a beer was kind of unheard-of anyway, literally speaking; it wasn't illegal to drink, and it was only a little bit immoral, but you'd never talk about it. This kind of behavior was only allowable if you weren't anybody in particular - the teachers, preachers, town doctor, mayor, and any other "personage" was pretty much forbidden from drinking, as it would ruin their reputation. My mom (preacher's wife) was risking a lot by having a bottle of sherry for cooking; she kept it in the laundry room, because ladies from the church could not be reasonably kept out of the kitchen cabinets and they'd throw a gossipy fit if they saw it. Mom got chided by a church lady for locking the door to the house when we were home, a habit she got into after the "knock-knock-open-hello!" style of visiting caught her exiting the shower in a towel.
The concept of everybody being part of a well-established always-lived-here family was already explained above, in the context of there only being a finite number of acceptable last names, and any other name is from "someplace else". The corollary is that nobody ever really leaves. It's happening more these days that kids go take a job in the city, or what have you, just because there's less of a living to be made in rural careers like farming, livestock, mining, lumber, etc. but there's still a strong pressure to stay where you grew up. Going to the nearest branch of the state university after high school is acceptable, going to the main campus is daring, going to the state university of a neighboring state is questioned (don't they teach that in?) and forgiveness can only be bought by moving home again as soon as you're done.
posted by aimedwander at 10:36 AM on December 30, 2014 [4 favorites]
Well, drinking a beer was kind of unheard-of anyway, literally speaking; it wasn't illegal to drink, and it was only a little bit immoral, but you'd never talk about it. This kind of behavior was only allowable if you weren't anybody in particular - the teachers, preachers, town doctor, mayor, and any other "personage" was pretty much forbidden from drinking, as it would ruin their reputation. My mom (preacher's wife) was risking a lot by having a bottle of sherry for cooking; she kept it in the laundry room, because ladies from the church could not be reasonably kept out of the kitchen cabinets and they'd throw a gossipy fit if they saw it. Mom got chided by a church lady for locking the door to the house when we were home, a habit she got into after the "knock-knock-open-hello!" style of visiting caught her exiting the shower in a towel.
The concept of everybody being part of a well-established always-lived-here family was already explained above, in the context of there only being a finite number of acceptable last names, and any other name is from "someplace else". The corollary is that nobody ever really leaves. It's happening more these days that kids go take a job in the city, or what have you, just because there's less of a living to be made in rural careers like farming, livestock, mining, lumber, etc. but there's still a strong pressure to stay where you grew up. Going to the nearest branch of the state university after high school is acceptable, going to the main campus is daring, going to the state university of a neighboring state is questioned (don't they teach that in
posted by aimedwander at 10:36 AM on December 30, 2014 [4 favorites]
No one locks anything. Cars are in the driveway with keys in them (or sometimes running if you're just stepping in somewhere for a second) and your house is unlocked (but maybe the gun safe is locked) and people may stop in to grab a thing with that knock-knock-hello thing. Or if there's an issue someone might take your car for a thing if you are the guy with the beater pickup or something. I borrowed someone's car for a few weeks and people who were used to seeing my car in my driveway assumed I'd moved or was out of town.
Rural mail delivery has different rules than suburban or urban. You can leave a letter in the mailbox with money for stamps instead of stamps. The mail delivery person may leave your package in the house or the car instead of making you come to the post office to get it. There is only one UPS or Fedex guy and you know them and they know you. If you see the UPS guy downtown on a day you are expecting a package, he'll get it from his truck for you. If you leave beer on your steps when you are not home but expecting a "signature required" package with a nice note, they will leave your package and take the beer.
posted by jessamyn at 10:54 AM on December 30, 2014 [4 favorites]
Rural mail delivery has different rules than suburban or urban. You can leave a letter in the mailbox with money for stamps instead of stamps. The mail delivery person may leave your package in the house or the car instead of making you come to the post office to get it. There is only one UPS or Fedex guy and you know them and they know you. If you see the UPS guy downtown on a day you are expecting a package, he'll get it from his truck for you. If you leave beer on your steps when you are not home but expecting a "signature required" package with a nice note, they will leave your package and take the beer.
posted by jessamyn at 10:54 AM on December 30, 2014 [4 favorites]
If you want to know how So and So is related to That One Over There, ask the funeral director. His wife has been keeping a big giant family tree of everyone in town, going back generations. (Also - the other funeral director in town smuggles drugs in the caskets.) Stay loyal to your funeral home - you'll have some explaining to do if your family suddenly switches funeral homes.
posted by vitabellosi at 11:09 AM on December 30, 2014
posted by vitabellosi at 11:09 AM on December 30, 2014
Response by poster: You guys are genius. Thank you so much for these replies!
posted by BlahLaLa at 11:37 AM on December 30, 2014
posted by BlahLaLa at 11:37 AM on December 30, 2014
As a nod toward modern-day life, I'll point out that small town organizations don't tend to have websites. Part of this is just because a school with 30 kids per grade needs less organizing than a school with 300 kids per grade; part of it is because there's less likely to be a teacher/parent/student capable of volunteering to put a site together; and part is because the news travels so fast you don't need ethernet. The website for a big town school is just trying to emulate the communications network that a small town school automatically has. If you skip school and fake a note saying you were sick, your parents will find out, because 10 people will ask them how you're feeling.
posted by aimedwander at 12:19 PM on December 30, 2014
posted by aimedwander at 12:19 PM on December 30, 2014
It takes forever to get your shopping done because there's someone you know on every aisle and you must stop and chat with each one.
posted by humboldt32 at 1:19 PM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by humboldt32 at 1:19 PM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]
You have to be nice to everyone with a service job or who stands behind a cash register, no matter how poor the customer experience. If you blow your top, you can't go back to that store, which is probably the only one that sells x that you need. Or maybe that cashier starts working somewhere else (or his sister does) and now you can't go there either.
Best advice ever received as a consultant to rural communities on why a town couldn't change: "For [$Thing] to happen, there have to be six funerals and there have only been three.
posted by carmicha at 1:35 PM on December 30, 2014 [4 favorites]
Best advice ever received as a consultant to rural communities on why a town couldn't change: "For [$Thing] to happen, there have to be six funerals and there have only been three.
posted by carmicha at 1:35 PM on December 30, 2014 [4 favorites]
We would have meat raffles for the Legion or 4-H or other community organizations; the big prizes would be pounds of porterhouses, ribs, etc.
Rural mail carriers didn't have mail trucks; it would usually be some beat-up car with a pair of yellow lights on it. You could tape coins to your letters and the postman would buy you stamps.
Big rivalries with the next town over.
Nthing being newcomers for a generation or generations. My parents have lived in the same small town for nearly 50 years and are not part of the inner circle yet.
The "rich" family in town is not really that rich by most American standards, they just have nicer snowmobiles, and are probably involved in a fairly mundane industry -- our "rich" family was a group of gravel barons.
A lot of the downtown areas are dying hard if you're within an hour to somewhere with a WalMart -- 100 year old dry good stores closing etc.
Church is often a big centerpiece of daily life, along with the high school. Church softball, raffles, fundraisers, etc. will probably feature prominently, even for those who are not terribly religious.
As part of everyone knowing everyone else's business, the town collectively keeps track of associations. So the 2nd Smith Kid is also the Johnson girl's ex-boyfriend who used to work at the feed mill but is now fixing cars at the shop.
Lots of kids have long commutes to school, like an hour-long, 30-mile bus ride is not uncommon. In Minnesota, school was cancelled if the windchill exceed 25 below zero because the kids would freeze while waiting for their buses, but a zero-degree morning was not a big deal. Some had little shacks to shelter them from the wind at the end of their driveways.
If you lived outside of "town," you wouldn't think much of riding a bike 5-10 miles to town and back for baseball practice at age 12. Driving was a big deal because then you could go to the "city," a 30,000 person town 45 minutes away that had things like a tiny mall and big box stores.
Meth wasn't a big thing when I was a kid, but it's becoming more and more prevalent now. Easier to make when anhydrous ammonia is commonplace.
In addition to corn detassling, picking rock is a rite of passage. In areas with rocky soil, frost pushes rocks up to the top of the field each spring, so you need to walk the fields and throw these often huge rocks into a trailer, and then dump the trailer at the end of the field, so that the rocks won't beat up the plows.
posted by craven_morhead at 2:12 PM on December 30, 2014 [6 favorites]
Rural mail carriers didn't have mail trucks; it would usually be some beat-up car with a pair of yellow lights on it. You could tape coins to your letters and the postman would buy you stamps.
Big rivalries with the next town over.
Nthing being newcomers for a generation or generations. My parents have lived in the same small town for nearly 50 years and are not part of the inner circle yet.
The "rich" family in town is not really that rich by most American standards, they just have nicer snowmobiles, and are probably involved in a fairly mundane industry -- our "rich" family was a group of gravel barons.
A lot of the downtown areas are dying hard if you're within an hour to somewhere with a WalMart -- 100 year old dry good stores closing etc.
Church is often a big centerpiece of daily life, along with the high school. Church softball, raffles, fundraisers, etc. will probably feature prominently, even for those who are not terribly religious.
As part of everyone knowing everyone else's business, the town collectively keeps track of associations. So the 2nd Smith Kid is also the Johnson girl's ex-boyfriend who used to work at the feed mill but is now fixing cars at the shop.
Lots of kids have long commutes to school, like an hour-long, 30-mile bus ride is not uncommon. In Minnesota, school was cancelled if the windchill exceed 25 below zero because the kids would freeze while waiting for their buses, but a zero-degree morning was not a big deal. Some had little shacks to shelter them from the wind at the end of their driveways.
If you lived outside of "town," you wouldn't think much of riding a bike 5-10 miles to town and back for baseball practice at age 12. Driving was a big deal because then you could go to the "city," a 30,000 person town 45 minutes away that had things like a tiny mall and big box stores.
Meth wasn't a big thing when I was a kid, but it's becoming more and more prevalent now. Easier to make when anhydrous ammonia is commonplace.
In addition to corn detassling, picking rock is a rite of passage. In areas with rocky soil, frost pushes rocks up to the top of the field each spring, so you need to walk the fields and throw these often huge rocks into a trailer, and then dump the trailer at the end of the field, so that the rocks won't beat up the plows.
posted by craven_morhead at 2:12 PM on December 30, 2014 [6 favorites]
Grew up on the Mississippi river in central Illinois in a town of 35,000. But some of these apply to VERY small towns.
CENTRAL Illinois is where the town is located, NOT southern Illinois, this ain't banjo country.
It's a huge deal when a new fast-food restaurant comes to town. When a Burger King opened in the mid-90's the drive-thru had an hour wait for the first month.
Relatedly, the reason there wasn't any new restaurants is because of a family, each son owned a local sit-down restaurant along with a fast-food franchise. Because of that they had big sway in town and city council made it very tough to bring in a new fast-food place.
Local fast-food that's 100 years old, absolutely unhealthy and shouldn't be eaten, and isn't that good anyway, but it's part of the town culture. Eg "Maid-Rite"
Local video stores that still survive and were more popular than Blockbuster back in the day anyway.
Geodes and/or Arrowheads can be readily found
There's usually a "lovers leap" or "dead mans curve"
The founder of the towns house/mansion is still standing and is now a museum.
There's may be theater that closed down long ago that was renovated or is in the perpetual processes of being preserved. If it was renovated its very bland looking now and may be owned by a church.
posted by wcfields at 4:29 PM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]
CENTRAL Illinois is where the town is located, NOT southern Illinois, this ain't banjo country.
It's a huge deal when a new fast-food restaurant comes to town. When a Burger King opened in the mid-90's the drive-thru had an hour wait for the first month.
Relatedly, the reason there wasn't any new restaurants is because of a family, each son owned a local sit-down restaurant along with a fast-food franchise. Because of that they had big sway in town and city council made it very tough to bring in a new fast-food place.
Local fast-food that's 100 years old, absolutely unhealthy and shouldn't be eaten, and isn't that good anyway, but it's part of the town culture. Eg "Maid-Rite"
Local video stores that still survive and were more popular than Blockbuster back in the day anyway.
Geodes and/or Arrowheads can be readily found
There's usually a "lovers leap" or "dead mans curve"
The founder of the towns house/mansion is still standing and is now a museum.
There's may be theater that closed down long ago that was renovated or is in the perpetual processes of being preserved. If it was renovated its very bland looking now and may be owned by a church.
posted by wcfields at 4:29 PM on December 30, 2014 [2 favorites]
I only know from small town rural Mine, but a lot of people grow corn in the front or side yards, and a lot of pre-fabricated single unit houses(think trailers without wheels, or the kind of pop up buildings for offices on construction sites) mixed in with "connected farmhouses" or garages that have been connected together with varying levels of DIY to professional means.
posted by The Whelk at 5:30 PM on December 30, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by The Whelk at 5:30 PM on December 30, 2014 [1 favorite]
Oh! Home businesses, because unemployment is high or people need to stay at home, stuff like signs for hairdressing or barber services outside people's houses. You also see "antique markets" or such that are basically just stuff in a barn - people trying to pick up on passing traffic with something that doesn't take a lot of time or capital.
Local Fudge is universal in small town general stores it seems.
posted by The Whelk at 5:33 PM on December 30, 2014 [1 favorite]
Local Fudge is universal in small town general stores it seems.
posted by The Whelk at 5:33 PM on December 30, 2014 [1 favorite]
If your town's festival stretches over the weekend, there will be a Sunday morning religious service (open air worship).
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:35 PM on December 30, 2014
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:35 PM on December 30, 2014
9 people were shot in or around my home town today--it had 13k when i grew up and now has 20 or so. it seems smaller. i had three phone calls waiting for me when i came home to my folks, im staying here for a while. it's the first incident like this since the 1950s. people need to process in person.
posted by PinkMoose at 6:21 PM on December 30, 2014
posted by PinkMoose at 6:21 PM on December 30, 2014
As a kid/teen, you can't get away with anything. SOMEBODY who knows you will see you do The Thing You Weren't Supposed To Do and will report back to your parents or to another family member who will tell your parents.
posted by meggan at 7:10 PM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by meggan at 7:10 PM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]
I grew up in a tiny town along the Kansas/Nebraska border, and most of these rang true for me. A couple of more:
-This may be mostly a grain-belt thing, but a lot of the small towns have faced decreasing populations and not enough kids for a school. Several towns will have to consolidate, and the decisions with that can be agonizing. Which towns will group together? We have to go to school with our rivals? The town with wither up and die without the school! But it will happen anyway. The high school in my hometown (pop 140ish at the time) closed in 1982, although the primary grades stuck around a bit longer. I went 7-12th grade in a town 8 miles away and we had a strung together name with three towns. I graduated in 1993, and my consolidated school only lasted another 8 years after. Since 2001, kids from those towns have attended "County Name" Central.
-For more about the schools, we only had college track and non college track, so class choice was pretty limited. Sports were also limited, but the games were the highlight of the week for everyone. Plenty of individual attention though, there were only three kids in my physics class!
-The local cafe wasn't making a profit when I was a kid, so basically the older ladies in town ran it on a volunteer basis. When they got too old, it finally closed for good.
-Connections mean everything. A kid a few years younger than I got drunk and hit a parked pickup. His grandfather was county commissioner so he wasn't the one who got into trouble, the owner of the pickup did. The pickup owner wasn't anywhere near the accident, but he and his family didn't have a good reputation in the locals' minds.
posted by weathergal at 8:42 PM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]
-This may be mostly a grain-belt thing, but a lot of the small towns have faced decreasing populations and not enough kids for a school. Several towns will have to consolidate, and the decisions with that can be agonizing. Which towns will group together? We have to go to school with our rivals? The town with wither up and die without the school! But it will happen anyway. The high school in my hometown (pop 140ish at the time) closed in 1982, although the primary grades stuck around a bit longer. I went 7-12th grade in a town 8 miles away and we had a strung together name with three towns. I graduated in 1993, and my consolidated school only lasted another 8 years after. Since 2001, kids from those towns have attended "County Name" Central.
-For more about the schools, we only had college track and non college track, so class choice was pretty limited. Sports were also limited, but the games were the highlight of the week for everyone. Plenty of individual attention though, there were only three kids in my physics class!
-The local cafe wasn't making a profit when I was a kid, so basically the older ladies in town ran it on a volunteer basis. When they got too old, it finally closed for good.
-Connections mean everything. A kid a few years younger than I got drunk and hit a parked pickup. His grandfather was county commissioner so he wasn't the one who got into trouble, the owner of the pickup did. The pickup owner wasn't anywhere near the accident, but he and his family didn't have a good reputation in the locals' minds.
posted by weathergal at 8:42 PM on December 30, 2014 [3 favorites]
I grew up in a small town in Vermont that was "big" by local standards and have been nodding my head furiously at this thread.
I live in a very urban area now and going back is like being on another planet. What is the weirdest is running to the store for something and being STARED for one, or both, of the following reasons: I am not wearing jeans and a barn jacket. They can't place who I am or how I belong there until it comes up that I'm "Karen's daughter." Everyone knows which Karen this is as she's the one with the daughter in the city.
There are no fashion trends. No one ever takes off their coat or shoes indoors.
People still heat their houses with wood and will find sneaky ways to convince you to throw a cord of wood onto the wood pile, or pay "the neighbor kid" some meager sum to do it. See also finding yourself dragged into helping out with haying.
A huge scandal at a church will have a segment of the population fleeing to the other church. Such scandals usually involve "some floozy." If the floozy is local it's not unheard of for her to actually have to leave town over this.
posted by sonika at 7:04 AM on December 31, 2014 [2 favorites]
I live in a very urban area now and going back is like being on another planet. What is the weirdest is running to the store for something and being STARED for one, or both, of the following reasons: I am not wearing jeans and a barn jacket. They can't place who I am or how I belong there until it comes up that I'm "Karen's daughter." Everyone knows which Karen this is as she's the one with the daughter in the city.
There are no fashion trends. No one ever takes off their coat or shoes indoors.
People still heat their houses with wood and will find sneaky ways to convince you to throw a cord of wood onto the wood pile, or pay "the neighbor kid" some meager sum to do it. See also finding yourself dragged into helping out with haying.
A huge scandal at a church will have a segment of the population fleeing to the other church. Such scandals usually involve "some floozy." If the floozy is local it's not unheard of for her to actually have to leave town over this.
posted by sonika at 7:04 AM on December 31, 2014 [2 favorites]
Checks or cash are still used because a lot of people doing business out of their homes are not going to have the means to accept credit cards for their services. I live in a small city that has a lot of small-town character among its long-time residents, and my apartment (in a house owned by a "mom and pop" picking up rental income on the side) and monthly "cleaning ladies" (two sisters from a nearby rural village) are paid for by check.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 10:41 AM on December 31, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 10:41 AM on December 31, 2014 [2 favorites]
Regarding mail...
There usually isn't a house number and street for rural addresses. My Grandparents' received mail at:
Grandparents
RR2 or Rural Route 2 (or some other number)
City, State, ZIP (added later)
Only in the past few years because of 911 needing a specific house number did their house get a number. The county tried the five-digit locating style number...where there's only one XXXXX for a house in the area, but that was quickly replaced with XXX Street Name.
Regarding phones....
There might still be party lines where two houses share the same phone number and if you want to make a call, you'd have to check and see if the line was in use. That ended for my grandparents in the mid 70s.
If your car breaks down, three or four people will stop to help.
Good luck!
posted by bach at 11:18 PM on December 31, 2014
There usually isn't a house number and street for rural addresses. My Grandparents' received mail at:
Grandparents
RR2 or Rural Route 2 (or some other number)
City, State, ZIP (added later)
Only in the past few years because of 911 needing a specific house number did their house get a number. The county tried the five-digit locating style number...where there's only one XXXXX for a house in the area, but that was quickly replaced with XXX Street Name.
Regarding phones....
There might still be party lines where two houses share the same phone number and if you want to make a call, you'd have to check and see if the line was in use. That ended for my grandparents in the mid 70s.
If your car breaks down, three or four people will stop to help.
Good luck!
posted by bach at 11:18 PM on December 31, 2014
All the people who go to church know what church everyone else goes to in a way that is totally opaque to me, a non churchgoer.
It's not that complicated. If you're a kid going to school in the town, you're going to hear about any interesting church stories from the previous Sunday, so you get a sense from that of what families go to what churches. (When I was in fourth grade, the Catholic kids were snickering about someone having to read aloud the "don't covet your neighbor's ass" phrase from the bible in a church class.) There is also a correlation between ethnicity and church. In my town the families with Irish and French surnames tended to go to the Catholic church. If, God forbid, someone breaks with their church and goes somewhere else, you're definitely going to hear about it from lots of people.
A few other things (town of 4,000 in northern NY):
- There are lots of unmarked but well-traveled paths apart from roads that people (mostly guys) travel with four wheelers and dirt bikes in the summer, snowmobiles in the winter. When I was a kid my parents let a couple teenage guys ride their dirtbikes along the edge of our property as part of an informal path the guys had put together.
- Memories are long and people can be petty about all kinds of things.
- There are a very few LGBT people and they are much gossiped about but usually accepted, especially if they come from an upstanding family or serve an important role, say town doctor.
posted by A dead Quaker at 9:41 AM on January 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
It's not that complicated. If you're a kid going to school in the town, you're going to hear about any interesting church stories from the previous Sunday, so you get a sense from that of what families go to what churches. (When I was in fourth grade, the Catholic kids were snickering about someone having to read aloud the "don't covet your neighbor's ass" phrase from the bible in a church class.) There is also a correlation between ethnicity and church. In my town the families with Irish and French surnames tended to go to the Catholic church. If, God forbid, someone breaks with their church and goes somewhere else, you're definitely going to hear about it from lots of people.
A few other things (town of 4,000 in northern NY):
- There are lots of unmarked but well-traveled paths apart from roads that people (mostly guys) travel with four wheelers and dirt bikes in the summer, snowmobiles in the winter. When I was a kid my parents let a couple teenage guys ride their dirtbikes along the edge of our property as part of an informal path the guys had put together.
- Memories are long and people can be petty about all kinds of things.
- There are a very few LGBT people and they are much gossiped about but usually accepted, especially if they come from an upstanding family or serve an important role, say town doctor.
posted by A dead Quaker at 9:41 AM on January 1, 2015 [3 favorites]
bach: "If your car breaks down, three or four people will stop to help."
I sometimes stop to take photos of rural scenes when I'm driving, and INEVITABLY if you pull over to the side of the road and get out, even if you are obviously camera-equipped, several cars in a row will stop to make sure you don't need help, and older people often think you're just being polite when you say "Oh, no, I'm fine, I'm just taking pictures" and are very reluctant to leave you roadside unattended.
I now try to do it furtively so I don't inconvenience people, but that makes me nervous someone's going to call the cops on me. :P
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:22 AM on January 1, 2015
I sometimes stop to take photos of rural scenes when I'm driving, and INEVITABLY if you pull over to the side of the road and get out, even if you are obviously camera-equipped, several cars in a row will stop to make sure you don't need help, and older people often think you're just being polite when you say "Oh, no, I'm fine, I'm just taking pictures" and are very reluctant to leave you roadside unattended.
I now try to do it furtively so I don't inconvenience people, but that makes me nervous someone's going to call the cops on me. :P
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:22 AM on January 1, 2015
Regarding the "local fast food" thing someone mentioned above.. There are now two fast food franchises in my town (assuming you count McDonalds and Taco Time as food) but seniority goes to the local joint, Burger Queen.
I'm still amused by the slogan on their T-shirt, which reads "Because 'Burger Bitch' just didn't sound right."
posted by Nerd of the North at 8:28 PM on January 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'm still amused by the slogan on their T-shirt, which reads "Because 'Burger Bitch' just didn't sound right."
posted by Nerd of the North at 8:28 PM on January 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
This may be peculiar to very small town (100-400 people) Minnesota...
The local paper is for community event announcements, school news, obituaries, and reports on which little old lady hosted card club this week. The entire town will know if something scandalous happens (e.g. man sets his brother's house on fire, teenage drunk driver rams cemetery gates, minister gets run out of town due to affairs with parishioners), but it will never be mentioned in the paper because someone might get upset.
During the brief period when some "city people" owned the paper, they completely horrified the locals by actually covering a drunk driving car crash complete with photos.
posted by superna at 4:46 PM on January 4, 2015 [3 favorites]
The local paper is for community event announcements, school news, obituaries, and reports on which little old lady hosted card club this week. The entire town will know if something scandalous happens (e.g. man sets his brother's house on fire, teenage drunk driver rams cemetery gates, minister gets run out of town due to affairs with parishioners), but it will never be mentioned in the paper because someone might get upset.
During the brief period when some "city people" owned the paper, they completely horrified the locals by actually covering a drunk driving car crash complete with photos.
posted by superna at 4:46 PM on January 4, 2015 [3 favorites]
My hometown (pop. ~3,000) is on top of a mountain so if you're going anywhere else it's just called "down the hill". Like, "I'm going down the hill tomorrow, do you need anything from Target?"
The local (weekly) newspaper is riddled with typos.
Our town is kind of a tourist trap so if you live there you NEVER want to be mistaken for a tourist. Also, most businesses have a "local discount" if you you ask--it might be something like 10% off, or a free cookie with your sandwich.
posted by exceptinsects at 10:09 PM on January 5, 2015
The local (weekly) newspaper is riddled with typos.
Our town is kind of a tourist trap so if you live there you NEVER want to be mistaken for a tourist. Also, most businesses have a "local discount" if you you ask--it might be something like 10% off, or a free cookie with your sandwich.
posted by exceptinsects at 10:09 PM on January 5, 2015
There still are dry counties. Sometimes surrounded by other dry counties. With people watching the liquor stores on the borders to make sure people don't carry too much beer back with them.
I've heard stories of people going from dry counties to the next-town-after-the-county-line or even the next-county-but one for booze, because nobody goes to the closest place because duh, and going further means you're only likely to encounter one or two people you know instead of a dozen.
Definitely barter, definitely dirtbikes, definitely people whose houses are on roads that match their family name because it was an ancestor who laid out the road and built the house.
posted by holgate at 9:02 PM on January 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
I've heard stories of people going from dry counties to the next-town-after-the-county-line or even the next-county-but one for booze, because nobody goes to the closest place because duh, and going further means you're only likely to encounter one or two people you know instead of a dozen.
Definitely barter, definitely dirtbikes, definitely people whose houses are on roads that match their family name because it was an ancestor who laid out the road and built the house.
posted by holgate at 9:02 PM on January 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
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posted by spunweb at 5:25 PM on December 29, 2014 [4 favorites]