Have you ever lived in a small town or in the country?

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Did you move away? Is life different where you are now? Do you ever go back?

Got any good dirt on your neighbors? Spill it.

-- Anonymous, September 26, 1999

Answers

Rio Linda.

Need I say more?

They got a McDonald's after I moved away.

A couple of weeks ago, Rio Linda hosted the "Gay Rodeo."

That really frightened me. I prayed and prayed and prayed that none of the locals who knew how to read would see that in the paper.

I didn't hear about any hate crimes being committed, so I guess everything went OK.

Great, next thing you know, the NAACP will start holding their meetings in Rio Linda.

-- Anonymous, September 26, 1999


Ceduna, South Australia. Population 3000, on average. Miles the hell away from most places. Voted the most racist town by the SA Minister for Ethnic Affairs in the 70's, and still has a pretty explosive racial problem. No KFC, no McDonalds, no traffic lights unless they're doing road works.

Gorgeous beaches, gorgeous clean air.

When I lived in AUstralia, I would go back once a year or so, to visit my Mum and Dad who lived there. They would take turns visiting me i Adelaide, the Big Smoke. They now live in Adelaide, and more to the point, I live in the USA, so I haven't been back to Ceduna for 2 1/2 years. Some of my relatives live there, including my Nanna, but when I go back to Australia for a visit next year, my Nanna will be coming to Adelaide, rather than me going to Ceduna, so it's not likely I'll be visiting Ceduna more than once in a decade I'm thinking.

-- Anonymous, September 26, 1999


Oh my god. I lived in a little hole called "Valley of Enchantment". That should clue you in. It was a suburb of Crestline, CA, pop. 6,000. They got a McDonald's after I left too.

I took my boyfriend up for a visit, and since I don't go there very often, my grandmother stopped by my mom's house where I was going to be (I have twenty-one relatives on my mother's side, and four live in VOE. The rest live in Crestline.) A friend of mine from high school stopped by too. Turns out that my friend, Jenny, well her sister was married to the son of my grandmother's best friend. We found out because my grandmother and Jenny had both gone to the wedding.

Well, during the course of that visit, my grandmother told a story about an incident that had happened at a bar recently. Apparently there was a fight, and this guy stabbed a man. My uncle, who is a sheriff, was there with my other uncle, who is a firefighter. I think they were off duty. Anyway, the man who'd been doing the stabbing went after my sheriff uncle, and hurt him somehow, then got the crap beat out of him by my fireman uncle.

So. My boyfriend and I said our goodbyes, then left. We decided to stop by another high school friend's house on our way out of town to have a beer or two and say hello. While there, my friend's brother came in and started telling us a story about how his best friend had hurt some sheriff in a barfight, after stabbing some guy....

It was creepy. To this day, I have a lot of trouble getting my boyfriend to go with me on visits to good ol' Crestline. "Too incestuous" he says. I'm rather inclined to agree.

-- Anonymous, September 26, 1999


I'm livin' it baby! And to top it off, I moved from the city to the country! Willingly! The most recent local exciting news is my brother-in-law's cow (one of them) got shot by a moose hunter. But we got us some of them adulterers too. ;-) We may have less than 1,000 people in a fifty mile radius, but we know how to have fun. I decided there's *so* much excitement out here, i'd start my own journal about it, let's see how long it lasts....

-- Anonymous, September 26, 1999

Odessa, Texas. Otherwise known as Odessalation, Slowdeatha, and Jimbobwe. Subject of the New York Times Bestseller "Friday Night Lights", about the evils of high school football. (It's set at my old high school.) Youthful stomping grounds of current prez wannabe George Dubyuh Bush.

Be afraid. be very afraid.

-- Anonymous, September 26, 1999



We had the best neighbors ever. Not the typical definition of a good neighbor, but they had the best fights. I found out that he got arrested on a DUI and did coke during one of their fights. This was the same fight that she wished him dead. This all from him splashing water on her while doing dishes, or something like that. Then once she started screaming for the car keys because he was passed out drunk and naked and he started calling her a crazy cunt. And this wasn't a once in a while thing, it was every weekend. Well, maybe they don't sound like the best neighors, and maybe it's wrong to say so, but they cracked me up. I miss them.

-- Anonymous, September 26, 1999

I grew up on a farm in Western Pennsylvania. I didn't like it at the time... too much work. I moved away after I graduated from High school, and lived in Philly and DC. Living in cities for 6 years has made me miss the small town/country life so much. Cities are too noisy, too crowded, and have too many strange people in them. Also, my #1 enjoyment in life is driving a car, but driving in the city sucks, and having to use subways/buses makes me feel inhuman. And people in the city tend to treat anything blue collar(country music, farms, hunting, etc.) as something to be made fun of, and to classify rural people as hicks/rednecks, which makes me extremely angry.

I can't explain why, but when I live in the country, drive a car everywhere, know almost everyone I see, am surrounded by people talking about simple small town things, I feel alive. But when I'm in a city, dependent on public transportation, surrounded by people I don't know, hearing sirens all the time, can't see far because of the buildings in the way, see barely any trees or grass, and the only entertainment is museums or the ballet(or some other boring "cultural" activity, I feel completely lost and depressed.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 1999


Oakford, Illinois. Population 350 and dropping.

The town had a school, a gas station, a tavern, a post office, a laundromat, and Tom's Market, the general store. When I went back a few years ago, the school had closed, the laundromat had been replaced by a little restaurant full of farmers, and Tom had sold the store.

The new owner's of Tom's weren't about to give Tom the credit for their new business. They pried the word "Tom's" off of the sign on the front of the building, leaving the store's new name, "Market." And the restaurant? It's very sensibly named "Restaur

-- Anonymous, September 27, 1999


I've lived in a reasonably small town and a small country.

The town was Gander, Newfoundland, population 8000. The country was Bermuda, total area 21 sq. miles.

Bermuda was immediately after Gander, so I went from cold snowy winters and forest to pink beaches and ocean.

Two years of that and my Dad was posted to Winnipeg, Manitoba, aka Winterpeg, Manisnowba.

I'm surprised I'm still not in climate shock.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 1999


Westmoreland, NH. There were 800 people when we moved there. There are around 2400 now. There are two stores in town...neither of which are supermarkets...just country stores. The nearest town of consequence is a 20 minute drive away.

I didn't like that you couldn't fart without someone knowing and informing the entire county, but I did like some of the other aspects. I liked that there was a Town Band. Our tuba player was 70 and we had a clarinet player who was 10. There was Old Home day, which was essentially an excuse for a parade and everyone drove their tractors or ponies through town. I liked sitting quietly with my dad at the beaver pond watching for beavers. I hated that the high school was in the town 15 minutes away and that it was considered a trip to either get to the town or have a friend come from there. I liked maple sugaring in the spring with my dad and brother and picking apples and peaches in the summer at nearby orchards for homemade pie and jams and apple butter.

I moved to California; I visit my folks sometimes.

Neighbor dirt...

Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater next door had a wife (and two little girls I babysat for) and wouldn't keep her. He was screwing some golddigger two towns over, who dumped him after he divorced his wife anyway.

Danny Boy was the first baby I ever took care of and was the first child of this really nice carpenter guy and his wife the xray technician...turned out he was also a spoiled brat. My dad caught him throwing rocks at one of our out buildings and breaking windows. Danny told his dad he didn't do it, my parents and his had words...but fortunately AFTER his dad did some awesome cabinet work for my folks.

I know a lot of dirt on my current neighbors, but none of it is particularly good. I just know what pains in the butt teenagers are and have been thanking my lucky stars that my kid isn't there yet.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 1999



When I was in third grade we moved to Kasbeer, Illinois -- population maybe 300. I went to a one-room school, there were three other kids in my class. The whole town was two blocks, and consisted of the church, the post office, the grain elevator, and the tavern. I loved it at the time. We moved away about two years later, and when I visited a few years ago, it was just horribly depressing. I gather it hadn't changed much, so I guess my perception of the town was very different when I was little -- it was a good place to be a kid.

-- Anonymous, September 28, 1999

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