You Know You Live in a Small Town When:

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You know you live in a small town when…
  • Everyone has the same 1st 3 digits to their phone number… so when you want to exchange #'s with someone you automatically only give them 4 digits…
  • You ‘walked to the bus stop’ on a dirt road…
  • There is One Catholic Church
  • There is One grocery store… 10 miles away
  • There is elementary school, one middle school, one high school…
  • There is Only ONE bank!
 
Some years back two co-workers of mine were returning from official business in western Kansas. They got to discussing politics, and former Senator Bob Dole’s name came up. They were trying to decide his age but neither one was sure.

As it happened, they were approaching his birthplace of Russell, KS. One of them said, well, here’s Russell—somebody here should know.” So they pulled off the interstate into town, and drove up to a small diner. Stepping into the front door, one of them said loudly, “Excuse me! How old is Bob?”

All the customers looked up from their lunch and said in near unison: “Seventy-six!”
 
Margaret33 said:
You know you live in a small town when…
  • Everyone has the same 1st 3 digits to their phone number… so when you want to exchange #'s with someone you automatically only give them 4 digits…
  • You ‘walked to the bus stop’ on a dirt road…
  • There is One Catholic Church
  • There is One grocery store… 10 miles away
  • There is elementary school, one middle school, one high school…
  • There is Only ONE bank!
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I can vouch for these too… we only listed our last 4 digits on school forms too. One Catholic Church, one bank…(next to the church), and one grocery store (after I lived there for 7 years) but the church and bank were farther away… they built the grocery store 3 blocks from home. Oh, and every Sunday after mass we stopped at the farm store for fresh made doughnuts (half the fun was watching them being made). And if we were really good… we got a dime and walked a mile to the general store for penny candies or a popcicle, then gave mom and dad the change! GOsh I am old!!!

oops…almost forgot…one elementary school, middle school built when I was in 4th grade and bussed to another town for high school.
 
homewardbound said:
When you bring city friends to town and they are screaming the whole time as you are driving that “This isn’t a road!” and they think they’re going to die. Then, when you come up to the major one lane roadway they finally say “Okay this is a road!” and you exclaim “Nah, this is a highway!”-happened to boyfriend
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Lol… I can identify with that!

You know you live in a small town when:
  • The dirt road you walk to catch the bus on is called ‘Old Homestead Road’
  • You have to drive 5 towns away to buy find a furniture store larger than the size of your living room
  • You have to drive 35 miles to the nearest mall
  • There is only one shoe store, and it’s 3 towns away
  • There is only ONE gas station
  • The people you went to Kindergarten with… are the same people in your graduating high school class
  • Go you ice skating in the winter, in the middle of the woods, in the middle of nowhere, on ‘the local pond’
 
I took my own Country Kids to THE Big City last weekend. They were facinated with the escelators in the mall. We had to ride them a few times - it was cheap entertainment for a while.
 
In the summer between graduating from college with an Agricultural degree and starting his graduate work, my brother-in-law spent some time working for a scientific pig farm (DeKalb) in the suburbs of Plains, Kansas (pop 1163).

As it turned out, there were a lot of Ag college students who spent some time at this experimental pig farm; some even came from big city eastern universities.

He told the story of one such girl driving west for a stint in Plains. Coming down Highway 54, the town is easy to miss, as it sits off to one side of the road, marked only by one small sign.

She missed it entirely, drove right past, and didn’t realize anything was wrong until she got to the Oklahoma border. “Oops, must have missed it,” she said. Then, turned around, drove back, and missed it again!
 
Margaret33 said:
Lol… I can identify with that!

You know you live in a small town when:
  • The dirt road you walk to catch the bus on is called ‘Old Homestead Road’
  • At age 12 you are driving 12 miles on a dirt road to catch the bus and then still have 15 miles to get to school
  • You have to drive 5 towns away to buy find a furniture store larger than the size of your living room
  • The only towns closer than 70 miles away have a one room school house and a post office (or just the post office), so they are even smaller than the town you live in
  • You have to drive 35 miles to the nearest mall
  • Closest mall is 180 miles
  • There is only one shoe store, and it’s 3 towns away
  • 85 miles to find a shoe store That town is big enough to have a WalMart
  • There is only ONE gas station
  • 3 here, next gas 70 miles
  • The people you went to Kindergarten with… are the same people in your graduating high school class
  • The country school kids join you in high school and you still have a dozen or less in your class
  • Go you ice skating in the winter, in the middle of the woods, in the middle of nowhere, on ‘the local pond’
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We are not only small, we are remote

Check out Garfield County, Montana
 
Teakafrog said:
Hey! I grew up not too far from that town! In fact, we went there as teenagers to party so we wouldn’t be found out at home. Didn’t work! My dad knew all about it before I got home anyway!
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No doubt Pratt was full of parental informants.
 
farmfresh said:
*you ask your granny if your related somewhere down the line to someone before you agree to go on a date w/ them.
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I have to disagree with this one as being exclusive to small-town living. I have a large extended family on both sides, and most of us live in metro Detroit, which has a population of approx. 4 million. Two cousin stories:
  1. My cousin R, on my mom’s side, started dating a guy she met socially. After a couple of dates, she commented on the fact that his last name was the same as her grandfather’s (my mom and her mom’s dad). After a bit of digging they realized that they were third cousins. Not illegal or technically incestuous, but they were both weirded out enough by the idea of being cousins that the relationship was stopped in its tracks.
  2. When we were middle schoolers, my cousin D., on my mom’s side (mom’s younger brother’s daugher), was telling me about this really cute boy in her school (we went to different schools). After a bit of description, she informed me that his last name was the same as mine, “isn’t that weird?” I then asked her what is first name was, and realized that she had a crush on another of my first cousins, the son of one of my dad’s brothers. :eek: That relationship would also not have been incestuous but it was still really weird to think about.
 
There was no dating involved, but 60 years ago I played basketball at a high school on a small island in Maine. [We were all on the team, it was the only way we had enough for a team. The school had 14 boys and 5 girls - no girls team.] When we played at other schools we stayed overnight with various families at the school we were visiting.

One night at a home some 50 miles or so away, I though the grandmother’s last name sounded familiar. She was a second or third cousin of my grandfather.
 
You know you are in a small town when during the Wake of your Mom your neighbour comes by and cuts the lawn as it needs to be done because he knows that you have lots on your plate.

Even though we are in a very remote area, we do have High Speed!
 
mommyof4 said:
You know you live in a small town when your mayor is also the school bus driver. This guy really needs your prayers right now, too:
siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2007/03/18/news/local/9a69b64c0a35ac77862572a200141434.txt

West Okoboji mayor hurt in bus accident
By Russ Oechslin, Journal Correspondent

MILFORD, Iowa – The 79-year-old mayor of West Okoboji, Iowa, was critically injured when he was thrown from the school bus he was driving Saturday morning.
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That almost sounds like the mayor of Jordan, but her name is Mary Ann and she hasn’t been in an accident. She often takes the route south of town down past Cohagen. 35 miles one way to the farthest house on the highway.
 
bluerose said:
… 20 years from now you’ll still be known as “the new family that moved into Bessie Brown’s old house.”
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That is so true!

I moved to this state 6 years ago and bought an old house. Everyone calls it “Emma’s Blue House”.

My name is Beverly and the house is yellow.

We got the abstract on the house and found that Emma died in 1913, and from pictures we were able to determine that the house was last blue in the 1950’s.
 
I grew up in a small town in Florida that was so small it didn’t have a downtown. We borrowed the downtown from the next town over.

At one point we only had a few traffic lights.

We used to deliver cookies to the police and fire stations on Christmas Eve. During the year, my mom never got tickets, just a semi-stern look and a wagging finger from the cops.
 
PaulinVA said:
I grew up in a small town in Florida that was so small it didn’t have a downtown. We borrowed the downtown from the next town over.

At one point we only had a few traffic lights.

We used to deliver cookies to the police and fire stations on Christmas Eve. During the year, my mom never got tickets, just a semi-stern look and a wagging finger from the cops.
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Our town only has one stop light. I never thought of the cookies - I’ll have to try that! Thanks for the idea.
 
You Know your brother-in-law lives in a small town when:

There are only 3 women within your brother-in-laws age range for dating. One is married, one is missing a lot of teeth, and the other is his cousin.
 
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