A recent humor post about small towns elicited some comments, questions, and not-necessarily-good memories. For those with curiosity, or defective nostalgia, here’s the real low, down.
Baskin-Robbins only has three ice cream flavors.
Corporate America has still not reached my little Canadian town. There used to be a couple of independent, Mom-and-Pop convenience stores that hand-dipped ice cream, before pre-packaged treats became available. Now they subsist by selling lottery tickets to folks dreaming about having enough money to get out.
You had to step out of the village limits in order to change your mind.
That’s a trick question. Nobody in my town changes their mind.
The nickname for the city jail is amoeba because it only has one cell.
Hah! Our town jail has two cells. One for drunken white men, and another for drunken Indians from the adjoining reservation.
McDonalds only has one Golden Arch and the nearest one is 15 miles away.
The nearest one is in the next town, 5 miles closer to the nuclear reactor, and the only source of employment left in the area.
Instead of a 7-11 they have a 3.5 – 5.5.
See ‘no corporate America’ above. 3.5 X 5.5 refers to metres – 20 by 30 feet sized convenience stores.
The New Year’s baby was born in April.
With all the screwing that’s going on, some of it even by people who are married – to each other – you’d think this would happen earlier in the year. All praise free birth-control information on the internet.
The “Welcome To” and “Thanks for Visiting “signs are front and back of the same sign.
The town has a lot of long-term summer residents – rich city folks who own expensive cottages. Neither they, nor the residents, really want transient, stay-at-a-tourist-camp visitors. There is no ‘Welcome’, or ‘Thanks’ sign. It was left to the Department of Highways to identify where drivers were with a generic sign.
You have to go to the next town to find 2nd Street….
At least there’s nothing as bland as 1st, 2nd, or 3rd Street in my home-town. We have a British-type, High Street, which I was born on, as well as street names like Morpeth, Anglesia, Grosvenor, Grenville, Landsdowne, Breadlebane, and Augusta.
A “Night on the Town” only takes about ten minutes.
There are bars in two hotels on High Street, a block apart. White folks drink at one. Indians drink at the other. If you drink too long at either, your ten-minute ‘Night on the Town’ could stretch to 72 hours in the appropriate comfortably-appointed jail cell.
The Subway restaurant that serves foot-long sandwiches cannot fit within the village limits.
See ‘no corporate America’ again. There is a French-fries/hamburger/ hot-dog take-out building on the highway, behind the bank. It limps through the winter months, and produces retirement income during the summer.
You do not bother using turn signals because everyone already knows where you are going.
Laid out by British surveyors, the town has good sight-lines, and broad streets. It is one of two towns in Canada with a 100 foot-wide main street – most have 66. If you do manage to cut off a local resident, they feel free to tell you where to go.
Big social events are scheduled around when the high school gym floor is being varnished.
The local Legion is big enough to handle most ‘big’ social events. The local high school was closed in 1955, because of lack of students. The couple of dozen per year are bused five miles to the 350 student ‘District’ high school.
You call a wrong number and the person who answers can give you the correct number for the person you are trying to call..
While this was once true, the internet has become a boon, since the big Don’t-Give-A-Damn epidemic hit town.
There is no point in high-school reunions because everyone knows what everyone else is doing anyway.
This is true of those too dumb to get out. The ones who leave, just tend to disappear.
“Do you remember Bob?”
“Bob who?”
“We went to school with him.”
“You mean Rob?”
“Maybe….”
“I got no idea where he went.”
School gets canceled for Provincial sporting events.
No-one in my town was good enough at any sport to qualify for Provincial meets. Senior elementary classes are sometimes bused to District events.
It was cool to date someone from a different high-school.
It had to be from the same ‘District’ high school, but at least you could date someone from a different town – or a farm girl, who could show you alternate social uses for the hay-mow in the barn.
The golf course had only three holes.
There’s a quite-nice golf course, 2 miles out of town, where the old highway wisely bypassed this social morass, a century ago. More recently, a developer included a tournament-worthy course as a perk with his new housing subdivision, on the other side of town, right next to the Indian reservation, whose residents are wisely not allowed to be members. They are both 18-hole courses. Amusingly, just 2 miles away from my current, big-city house, is a course that the city has grown out and surrounded. It is a par-3 course.
Anyone you are looking for can be found at either the Dairy Queen or Wal-Mart, over in ‘The Big City’.
I remember when I thought that it was the cultural center of the Universe, with all of 10,000 residents.
Directions are given using the one and only stop light as a reference – after they finally installed one.
Even after they redirected the highway through the town, instead of past it, the intersection with the main street was a 4-way stop until the Department of Highways insisted on a traffic light in 1955. It’s still the only one.
Weekend excitement involves a trip to the grocery store.
1955 was a year of excitement. A Canadian-based supermarket came to town to challenge 3 little independent grocery stores. While considerable excitement can be had with bananas and cucumbers, the entire town was agog when they imported coconuts.
Your teachers remember when they taught your parents.
My Dad was a Johnny-come-lately, carpet-bagger, non-native. My Mom left in her early teens during the dirty-Thirties, and returned as an adult. None of the teachers had been inoculated, or developed a resistance to me.
The best burgers in town are at the four-lane bowling alley.
Our bowling alley had the best burgers and 8 lanes, but was an unheated summer-only, beach bowling alley, only open from the end of May, till Labor Day. The next town down had a year-round, 4-lane alley, but no lunch bar. The best burgers were next door at the owner’s A-frame, chalet diner.
Tell us about your tiny home-town…. or the unfortunate section of big city that you grew up in.
Archon's Den 