O/T: Small Towns

Enjoy

Lew _________________________________________________ Those who grew up in small towns will laugh when they read this.

Those who didn't will be in disbelief and won't understand how true it is.

1) You can name everyone you graduated with.

2) You know what FFA & 4-H means.

3) You went to parties at a pasture, barn, gravel pit, or in the middle of a dirt road. On Monday you could always tell who was at the party because of the scratches on their legs from running through the woods when the party was busted. (See #6.)

4) You used to 'drag' Main over & over.

5) You whispered the 'F' word and your parents knew within the hour.

6) You scheduled parties around the schedules of different police officers, because you knew which ones would bust you and which ones wouldn't.

7) You could never buy cigarettes because all the store clerks knew how old you were (and if you were old enough, they'd tell your parents anyhow.) Besides, where would you get the money?

8) When you did find somebody old enough and brave enough to buy cigarettes, you still had to go out into the country and drive on back roads to smoke them.

9) You knew which section of the ditch you would find the beer your buyer dropped off.

10) It was cool to date somebody from the neighboring town.

11) The whole school went to the same party after graduation.

12) You didn't give directions by street names but rather by references. Turn by Nelson's house, go 2 blocks to Anderson 's, and it's four houses left of the track field.

13) The golf course had only 9 holes.

14) You couldn't help but date a friend's ex-boyfriend/girlfriend.

15) Your car stayed filthy because of the dirt roads, and you will never own a dark vehicle for this reason.

16) The town next to you was considered 'trashy' or 'snooty,' but was actually just like your town.

17) You referred to anyone with a house newer then 1940 as the 'rich' people.

18) The people in the 'big city' dressed funny, and then you picked up the trend 2 years later.

19) Anyone you wanted could be found at the local gas station (Pink Potty) or the dairybar. (Land's Drive-In)

20) You saw at least one friend a week driving a tractor through town or one of your friends driving a grain truck to school occasionally.

21) The gym teacher suggested you haul hay for the summer to get stronger.

22) Directions were given using THE stop light as a reference.

23) When you decided to walk somewhere for exercise, 5 people would pull over and ask if you wanted a ride.

24) Your teachers called you by your older siblings' names.

25) Your teachers remembered when they taught your parents.

26) You could charge at any local store or write checks without any ID.

27) There was no McDonalds.

28) The closest mall was over an hour away. (What was a mall?)

29) It was normal to see an old man riding through town on a riding lawn mower.

30) You've pee'd in a cornfield or on a road that had no traffic.

31) Most people went by a nickname.

32) You could by a candy bar for nickel.

33) You could go to the movies for a dime.

34) Saturday movies all had a cereal.

35) Ice cream cones were a nickel two dips for a dime.

36) A car hop took your order at the local drive-in.

37) Few students owned cars.

38) Gasoline was 20 cents per gal.

39) No TV's & not every one had phones.

40) Drive-in theaters were gre at for lovers.

41) You laughed your butt off reading this because you know it is true, and you forward it to everyone who may have lived in a small town.

I would not have wanted to have been raised any other way!!!!

Tough times don't last... Tough people do...

Reply to
Lew Hodgett
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42) You could buy cigarettes from a vending machine for a quarter.

42) You could buy penny candies at the corner store. Candy bars were a nickel and the new fancy BIG candy bars were a dime.

43) You could buy three loaves of bread or three gallons of milk for a dollar.

44) Fireworks were universally available to anybody of any age..

45) If you got into any kind of legal trouble, you went into the army. This was considered punishment and character development.
Reply to
Lee Michaels

snip

Or

42) When you have been sent to get some items at the local market and when you get to the cashier, she tells you that your mother called and you also need to get a gallon of milk.
Reply to
Dan Coby
46) you could go to the gas station, put in a bucks worth and scoop the loop all night.

47) nobody stopped at the stop sign at the railroad tracks through town, not even the cop. gotta love it

Reply to
Ross Hebeisen

And the 2 pennies change were taped to the side of the pack.

Reply to
ROY!

I know you're just forwarding it so I'm not busting *your* chops...

I had to read it twice.

Reply to
duckecho

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net (Ross Hebeisen) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@baytvnwsxa002.msntv.msn.com:

48) When your mother needed you for something, she just yelled out the back door. 49) You'd predict the weather by looking at the cows just outside town.
Reply to
Puckdropper

Still remember a Saturday night, walking to a buddy's house from the pool hall after it closed at midnight.

We stopped to have a smoke and while enjoying the "smoke", a squad car pulled up to check us out.

As part of that interview the officers suggested we might want to consider quitting smoking for a lot of reasons including cost.

One officer specifically commented about a $0.25/pack cost.

I quickly countered, "Oh no sir, I buy them for $1.95/carton, never use a vending machine."

Talk about the perception of youth and invincibility.

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

And the small convenience store used garage doors as the main entrance and it was called the Ice House.

You bought your Ice from the Ice House and it started out as a solid block of ice carried out side to be crushed and emptied into a paper bag.

The only grocery store had red stained wooden floors and they delivered.

The Chevrolet dealer was the gas station and had 5 new pick up trucks on display across the highway.

You disposed of your own trash, you burned it or hauled it to the dump your self.

Widow's or Widower's were known as Old Lady Smith or Old Man Smith.

Every one lived on or one block off the highway.

It was dark at night.

You dressed up to go to the grocery store.

The trip to the grocery store was a social event.

Repairmen had to come from several towns away.

15 minutes from home meant you were in another town.

There were no cross walks, street curbs, or street drains.

Reply to
Leon

"Leon" wrote in news:%q%Pj.5594$ snipped-for-privacy@nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com:

*snip*

Except for down town, where they had curbs and maybe a cross walk on one corner.

Puckdropper

Reply to
Puckdropper

If you had curbs you weren't in a small town. And small towns don't have "down towns." You either live in town or you go to town.

Reply to
LRod

on 4/24/2008 8:55 AM Leon said the following:

You would get change from a quarter when buying a burger and a coke. Large Christmas toys were bought from the local Western Auto Store. Smaller ones from the local Woolworths. Kids earned money setting pins at the bowling alley. 10 cents per game, per player. Coke costs 5 cents per 10 ounce bottle plus 2 cents deposit. Pepsi costs the same, but had 2 more ounces per bottle.

Reply to
willshak

"LRod" wrote

Case in point: even if you live in Snyder, TX, you are not _from_ "Snyder", but _from_ "Scurry County" instead.

When greeting/welcoming a stranger, even the townies always say "Welcome to Scurry County!".

I took that as a result of the decidedly rural nature of the area, where many/preponderance of the folks indeed live on ranches.

Reply to
Swingman

A fist fight these days has every chance winding up with you getting shot.

Trying to initiate a fist fight these days has every chance winding up with you getting shot.

Look at someone the wrong way and you wind up getting shot.

You can get robbed and have the crap beat out of you while thirty pedestrians stand there and watch.

Look at another driver while motoring around realize that some road rage Neanderthal is chasing you.

You're afraid to ask one of the local girls out because you might get charged with harassment.

You ask one of the local girls out and her and brother and father beat the crap out of you.

You ask one of the local girls out and she beats the crap out of you. It isn't until you get out of the hospital that you realize how lucky you are the relationship never happened.

You wake up one morning and find out that you're newly painted white washed house has been targeted by graffiti artists.

Someone you eyeballed in the local supermarket followed you home and keyed your car with swastikas.

The repairmen who come to fix things at your house won't come anymore because their van keeps getting rifled.

Your home has been robbed three times so you buy a gun to protect yourself and the cops come and arrest you for owning a gun. While you're downtown getting book, someone breaks into your house and steals most everything of value that you had.

Gotta stop now. My paranoia is running rampant.

Reply to
Upscale

The cross walks are death traps for anybody that attempts to cross, the streets have potholes everywhere and the street drains overflow during every rain storm.

Reply to
Upscale

You only had one Wal-Mart. And the local pharmacy, grocery store, general store, and photography studio all went out of business around the same time.

The guys that work at Home Depot can still remember when there were three family owned hardware/building supply stores.

The thirteen year old with a criminal record for bringing nail clippers to school has a father who at age seventeen was caught speeding with booze and pot in the car and was given a rap on the noggin by the local deputy before being taken home to his parents as punishment.

Reply to
DS

Or Stanton Tx, Billboard proclaimed " The biggest Town in Martin County". It was the only town in Martin County. Claimed to have 2000 friendly people and 1 old grouch!

Reply to
Plano Bill

Half this stuff was true even if you lived in a "not so small town", depending on when you are talking about, and much of it was not true even in a tiny town where "you are now entering" and "you are now leaving" were on opposite sides of the same post. The pricing in particular.

I grew up in a small town (not a village) about 15 miles and 2 towns from the "city" in the fifties/sixties.

We had one stoplight, no movie theatre, and when we first moved there one public school and one "district" high school. 4 grocery store, 2 hardware stores, 2 restaurants and one "variety" store. Within a couple years a second elementary was built as the town grew. IIRC there were 7 churches. 2 feed mills plus The farm supply Co-op) and 4 gas stations

I remember the 5 cent "flip" pop, penny candy,7 cent Royal Crown, nickel bags of chips, etc. EVERYBODT walked to school - or perhaps biked (particularly the kids from just out of town)

The big difference between tiny towns, small towns, and the nearby city was the cops.

Tiny towns were policed by the OPP (Ontario Provincial Police - the "Provies) Small towns had a one or two man force. For a while our cheif of police was the former dog catcher, and local bootlegger.

We always said a "small town" was one so small it had to import the local drunk -( which ruled us out)

At the public school level you not only knew everyone who graduated with you, but most of the rest of the kids as well by name (and who their older siblings were) Being a "district" highschool with kids bussed in from 30 miles or so you didn't know EVERYONE in your year, but by graduation I knew better than 80% of the kids in my year by name and what village/area they came from (school of about 1000 kids at the time)

I grew up in a small town, and wouldn't have had it any other way.

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Reply to
clare at snyder dot ontario do

Sounds more like the big city to me - like Young & Finch in "the big smoke"

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Reply to
clare at snyder dot ontario do

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