BEST SMALL TOWN COUNTRY STORIES

[ruth]

I've told this story on here once before but truly love it:

I'm guessing it must have been in November a few years back when I could hear guns going off like crazy in my "backyard" - the wooded area on the other side of the creek.

I promptly called the local sheriff and explained what was going on. The sheriff had the best Smokey and the Bandit sheriff's drawl you'd ever hear and all he said was: "Ma'am it's hunting season".

I explained that I live in a "subdivision" and these were big gun shots and lots of them. "Ma'am it's hunting season".

I explained that I owned the property on the other side of the creek and that all of the newer homes over there don't have any property and they've cut down all of their trees so they must be hunting on my property. "Ma'am it's hunting season".

I explained that I could be shot in my own backyard. "Ma'am it's hunting season".

In exasperation I finally hung up. At the time it was not a bit funny but I grew to love the way you can call them for anything - cat up a tree - and before you can hang up the phone there's 4 cop cars, two cops each, the paramedics, ambulance and a fire truck but call them and say there's a pack of crazed hunters in your backyard and "Ma'am it's hunting season".

 

[justusnak]

 

[schmoo]

We have NO stoplights on my town LOL.......

Heres when I realized how much I love the country and having the small town friendliness. We moved out here about 6 years ago. We had met our neighbors across the street a few times while we were outside. They were very nice people and hard working farmers. I'm guessing they are about 80 yrs. old. Anyways the first snowstorm of the season came and it was RIDICULIOUS I bet it was 24 inches overnight. We had a tiny snowblower (totally unprepared here) and a long driveway that had drifted to about 3 feet of snow. SO I am in a panic calling snowplow places, who ofcourse were booked for atleast 36 hours..........

Well I hear a noise and I look out and our 80 year old neighbor is on his huge tractor and plowed us out in about 5 minutes. So I run out there cash in hand to thank him and ofcourse he would not accept $. So I went in and baked 3 different kinds of goodies and brought them over

Let me just say we are ALOT more prepared for the kind of storms you can get out here, but thank goodness for the neighbors and their tractor on that day!

 

[seedcorn]

Having always lived in a small town (grew up w/no stop lites or stop signs on main drag) now in town that has a stop light and a stop sign (big time). Most of us don't want $$ for doing something nice but getting something that is out of your work (baked goods, garden things in summer, etc does mean something. Of course, being there to help neighbor when they are in need is always good.

My wife being a city girl, always thinks $$ when she wants to thank someone. Even after 30 years I can't break her of this habit........

 

[MissPrissy]

I grew up on a small cattle farm in rural Georgia. The county seat was 16 miles away and the nearest little place with a store was half the distance in the opposite direction in the next county. For years there was only a flashing caution light where the 2 old highways intersected. I grew up traditonally southern in most every stereotypical way.

When I moved to Va, to Metro D.C., to marry my (now) husband it was like moving to a foreign land. We lived in a town house on 0.03 acres, postage stamp size. The grass was cut with a weed eater. That is how tiny it was. All around us was foreign nationals. To left, korean. To the right, nigerian. Behind us, Scottish, English, Cuban and other Hispanics. None of them were very nice but not rude if you can understand. The idea of Virginia being southern is being lost in the Northern Virginia area. There is no where up there that I discovered the southern hospitality I was accustomed to. I met no one in the time we lived up there that ws a native to Virginia or the South. It is very international and very different.

After a year I was wilting like a potted plant with no water. We started looking for a new house because I really couldn't live in that city any longer. I do believe I would have eventually become so depressed that I would have taken ill. But I did try. I grew vegetables in containers, landscaped the tiny back yard - people who could see down into our backyard would comment in passing that it was a lovely view from above. I tried to be friendly to the neighbors and shared what came out of my tiny garden. No one ever said thank you for the tomatoes and zucchini and things. It was very strange.

When we bought this house and moved here to this defunct tiny village in central Virginia it was like going home to Georgia. I could look at the trees as I drove down the road and my mind would instantly think I was in Georgia. My eye would see a familiar color and make of car and immediately my mind would look to identify the driver as someone I knew from back home. We have a good life here. It is fun and at times frustrating to teach my husband all the things a country girl knows but we manage and he is learning.

Seriously - Green acres is the place for me, Farm living is the life for me!

 

[sloper74]

We moved from NOVA to Southside (Charlotte County) 3 years ago, where there is no stoplight. I love that people know your business but stay out of your business. I love the fact that my neighbor and I can barter, honey for eggs. I love the fact that I know the lady at the post office and about her rheumatism. I love the fact that people give you the wave when you drive by, that you have 3 people stopping to help you when your car even thinks about pulling off to the side. I love the way the gentlemen are polite and Southern and say, "Yes, ma'am" and think you don't know how to change a tire when you do.

I love the way the whole county stops financially when it's hunting season and I love seeing the big rack on the buck the 9 year old kid bagged in the local paper. I don't even mind if folks refer to us as "those Yankees" - I'm just glad to be here in the South.

 

[marko15]

Well I live in a small town, we have one guy who put a portable sawmaill in his backyard and then proceeeded to saw late into the night which made his close neighbors pretty angry. As far as the bank goes, everybody tells everybody 's business so someday when I write out a check I'm going to make everybody really talk for in the memo line I'm going to put Sexual favors!!

 

[mom'sfolly]

I have a book recomendation about life in a small town. Its called "If You Lived Here, I would Know Your Name" by Heather Lende. It happens to be about the town I grew up in, but it is a wonderful book about life in small town Alaska. Heather Lende writes for the local paper, a weekly, and does a weekly column in the Anchorage Daily Times and does peices on NPR. Go to the library or bookstore and READ this book. Its lovely. For me it was also wonderful because I knew so many people talked about in this book, even though I moved almost 30 years ago.

Karen

 

[hsm5grls]

: am so jealous. I grew up in a small town. the kind where you don't really have to watch for cars cuz' they will swerve instead of hit you. If you mess around on the way to school and are late, your parents heard it from the neighbors way before the school calls. Well now I live in Tucson population hit 1 million this year and for some reason everyone was proud of that?
I miss the wave when someone drives by. The fund raiser b-b-q at the volunteer fire station. The cornfields and the way they sound when the wind blows, running through walnut orchards for the heck of it. I miss the spring and driving to church, all the cows would have babies walking next to them and a few times i even saw a calf drop to the ground while we were driving bye. Oh the smell of the corn feed and the big mounds of it with the black plastic over it.
I live in a rural part of Tucson and am trying to give my girls a small town life as much as i can. But you can hear sirens almost every night. Walmart is just up the street. People are so rude. If I'm working in the yard all day an decide i need something from the convenient store I have to get all dolled up or be looked at funny. ?How dumb if i got dirt on my pants it's because duh i was working. Women around here are all prissy little fakes. God forbid you are seen without make up and your hair curled. Maybe it's the neighborhood? I just hate it I want hay fields not pavement. 14 yrs. i still hate it.I am sitting here almost in tears. I want my small town back.

you all made me home sick LOL

 

[schmoo]

hsm5grls- You made me think of another reason I love my small town. If I throw on a hat and some flip flops I'm usually the best dressed person at the local store LOL

Sorry your homesick and hope you get to somewhere you like it more soon.