You Know You Live in a Small(ish) Town When...

[LizzieMaine]

People name the potholes.

 

[sheeplady]

... when you tell a neighbor you're looking for a house to rent and get five landlords calling you that night.

... when you can't drive anywhere in town because the cars are stopped in the road chatting to people on the street or to another car coming the opposite direction .

... when cars stop when you are at the crosswalk rather than gunning to run you down.

...when the daily traffic jam is caused by cars stopping for the resident ducks to cross the road.

... when the duck's are "named" and referred to by name in the local weekly.

 

[Nobert]

When your downtown is such a pathetically small stand of buildings that tumbleweeds would roll around it rather than risk being seen there, and would-be gunfighters agree that this whole thing is making them both look silly and settle their differences peaceably.

 

[Fading Fast]

...
... when the duck's are "named" and referred to by name in the local weekly.

This really happens?

 

[2jakes]

This really happens?

Watch...."Libeled Lady" with Loy and Powell.
Fishing scene.
Yes.... it really happens!

At least in our smallish town
it did.
(TCM is your best bet to see
this movie)


Also there are spots in town
with names that to out-of-towners
would see nothing odd about it.
But to the locals such places and
mention of the name would have
a definite interpretation.
But this is not just reserved for
small towns.

 

[green papaya]

When WALMART is the BEST store in town

it's so nice, people actually have a wedding at WALMART

If you havent seen an old friend in a while just hang out at your local WALMART , you always run into somebody you know or havent seen in a while if you go to WALMART, it's like a family reunion.

I bet if you head down to WALMART right now on a Saturday morning you will see somebody you know, it could be your neighbor, an old co worker, or someone you went to high school with over 30 years ago.

 

[MisterCairo]

This really happens?

http://www.visitstratford.ca/swan-weekend

http://www.visitstratford.ca/swan-quest

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/stratford-swans-roundup-2015-1.3261501

Big news one year - one of the named pairs saw one killed by a drunken idiot, and the survivor took up a new mate (swans normally do truly mate for life):

http://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/sad-swan-story-sees-sweet-ending-in-stratford-1.618939#

 

[2jakes]

When I'm having a pity-party.
A trip to Wally-mart makes me
feel better afterwards!

 

[GHT]

......everyone looks alike.

That is so true, but don't make the mistake that I made. After living in London for the best part of my life, getting used to a more sedate pace took time. At a busy cafe where we often enjoy breakfast, I said to my wife, loud enough to be heard by a wider audience: "Have you noticed that all the shoes in the shoe shop have extra wide fitting?" She gave me her, what's coming next, look? "It's the DNA, they've all got six toes." She spluttered her coffee as she stifled a laugh, but there was no smiles on the surrounding tables. If looks could kill.

 

[Fading Fast]

Watch...."Libeled Lady" with Loy and Powell.
Fishing scene.
Yes.... it really happens!

At least in our smallish town
it did.
(TCM is your best bet to see
this movie)...

Thank you. I've seen the movie and can, now, even picture the scene where it probably happens, just must have flown by me when I was watching it. TCM is the best.

http://www.visitstratford.ca/swan-weekend

http://www.visitstratford.ca/swan-quest

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/stratford-swans-roundup-2015-1.3261501

Big news one year - one of the named pairs saw one killed by a drunken idiot, and the survivor took up a new mate (swans normally do truly mate for life):

http://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/sad-swan-story-sees-sweet-ending-in-stratford-1.618939#

Thank you. I grew up in what I thought was a small town, but now I realize it wasn't in comparison to a real small town.

 

[MisterCairo]

Thank you. I've seen the movie and can, now, even picture the scene where it probably happens, just must have flown by me when I was watching it. TCM is the best.



Thank you. I grew up in what I thought was a small town, but now I realize it wasn't in comparison to a real small town.

We still talk about the "murdered" swan.

And the year one female left her mate for another man.

Hussy...

 

[GHT]

...all your parades are agriculturally themed: the dairy parade, the maple parade, the corn parade and the highlight of any parade are the tractors and your village's two firetrucks.

Don't you have a Soapbox Derby?
Europe is big on "Twinning." Villages all over the UK twin with some remote village in another country, then have a Twinning festival. The nearest community to us held a French day when their French twin came to visit. Talk about a pastiche, there was a French market, the ubiquitous Johnny Onion seller, baguettes, patisseries, this that & the other. However, I didn't mind the Cancan girls, that was fun.

 

[GHT]

When nut jobs are called characters or eccentrics. Where the undertaker, blacksmith, wheelwright, carpenter, farrier, plumber et al, is the same guy.

 

[52Styleline]

Your local phone book includes the whole County because that's the only way to make it worth printing. Otherwise it would be a flyer.

 

[Nobert]

The house that, 35 years ago when you were a kid, used to have big, loud dogs, that would run out and bark at you menacingly whenever you walked or rode your bike past it and frightened you; nowadays has big, loud dogs, that run out and bark at you menacingly whenever you walk or ride your bike past it and frighten you.

 

[sheeplady]

Don't you have a Soapbox Derby?
Europe is big on "Twinning." Villages all over the UK twin with some remote village in another country, then have a Twinning festival. The nearest community to us held a French day when their French twin came to visit. Talk about a pastiche, there was a French market, the ubiquitous Johnny Onion seller, baguettes, patisseries, this that & the other. However, I didn't mind the Cancan girls, that was fun.

We don't do the twinning thing... some places have "sister" cities, but not small ones. I've never seen a soapbox derby.

Another one:
...when the parade consists of 5 tractors driven right out of their field.

... when Santa rides a tractor in the Christmas parade.

...when your potential field for mates is half the eligbles because you don't dare date anyone who's parents drives the wrong color tractor. (International/case or deere family.)

 

[sheeplady]

This really happens?

Yes. I've seen it twice. Although one was a posh place and they had named swans that swam on the fenced pond in the middle of the town, not ducks. I didn't live there, but when the eggs were smashed one year, it made the cover of the daily paper... with the swan parents called by name.

 

[green papaya]

when you can step on your back porch and fire your guns in your own back yard without having to worry about somebody calling the Sheriff

you know your in the sticks when you can just walk outside and do some target practice out back with your own private range.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We had a Soap Box Derby here in the '90s but it was extremely ersatz. It was basically the induging of a certain rich man's childhood daydream -- he'd always wanted to be in one as a kid, and when he came to town with his monster bankroll he decided to fund a Soap Box Derby. But there was no sense of spontaneity to it -- the cars were all built from molded plastic body shells and pre-made kits, everything was strictly organized and regulated and regimented to where it was more an excercise in competition for bourgeois dads than it was something fun for the kids to do. There was no scruffy, ad-hoc improvisation allowed, and there were certainly no actual Soap Boxes. It went away when the rich man was suddenly deposed by his board of directors, and nobody particularly missed it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The house that, 35 years ago when you were a kid, used to have big, loud dogs, that would run out and bark at you menacingly whenever you walked or rode your bike past it and frightened you; nowadays has big, loud dogs, that run out and bark at you menacingly whenever you walk or ride your bike past it and frighten you.

In my neighborhood that dog was named "Wiggly," and was a German Shepherd out of a World War II movie, who would lunge at you with fangs glistening if you came within twenty feet of his property line. Wiggly was kept on the end of a very heavy rope, with a knot that looked like it could come undone at any moment, which was incentive enough for all of us to give him a very wide berth.

My sister once got too close to Wiggly, he lunged, and she pedaled off in a panic, hit a pothole, went over handlebars, and hit the pavement face first. She still has a rock embedded under the skin of her cheek from that encounter.