I love small towns....

[SFC B]

Is that one of those pork loin sandwiches I've heard so much about?

Those are, in fact, pork tenderloins, literally the most important food item in Hoosierland. Many will be as big as the entire plate.

 

[rmyoung1]

I was hunting with my dad out of Lima MT. We were driving my brother’s old Ford truck and it blew a spark plug as we headed out of town. We drove back and got to the local mechanic’s place. His name was Justin. He told us he’d need to go to Dillon for the replacement parts but he didn’t want us to miss a day of hunting while we waited so he gave us the keys to an old truck of his and let us borrow it for the day. He even pointed out a north-facing slope where I later found elk. I’ll never forget that dude. Dad paid him almost double what he charged us for the repair.

 

[rmyoung1]

I got another:

It was my freshman year of college and I was studying in my New York City dorm room. It’s 1996 so I don’t have a cell phone. My dorm phone rings and I answer.
Me: “Hello?”
The lady on the other end of the line goes: “Hey, Matthew, this Cheryl from First Interstate Bank back home in Gardiner. I called your mom and got your number.”
Me: “Oh, hi, Cheryl. What’s up?”
Cheryl: “You didn’t write a $2,000 check recently, did you?”
Me: “Uh, no. I barely have $2,000.”
Cheryl: “Yeah, I didn’t think so. I’ll cancel it. Probably fraud. Have a nice day and enjoy college.”

 

[Nick87]

The town in southern Illinois my grandparents live in. The bar/restaraunt in town will make you one to go if they know your local. Go in there and Grandpa has to do his walk around and say hi. Stops at damn near every table. Used to be every table.

 

[tarheel]

The True Value Hardware & Lumber Store in Creede, CO. Great place to decompress after you've been drug thru every boutique in Creede.

..and it has mounts and knives gents.

Used to do the raft races downstream from there every June; one of my favorite places though I knew it was in trouble the last time I was there. Too many large houses built there in the valley, and when I saw a slower vehicle move over onto the shoulder as if it was a farm and market road in you know where, it was evident that I had entered a new era.

 

[hank4elk]

Pie Town, name says it all. And that's it.
Quemado, maybe 200 in the area.
I was at the J&Y ,Jerry's station yesterday to get trailer tires replaced and gas up. As usual the place was busy as it is the only place to get help to get down the road.
A Shefiff's vehicle pulls up and my buddy Michael and a new deputy get out and Michael introduces me and asks how I'm doing. Just fine & dandy and you, the family?...the usual.
He is in a new uniform and has a new badge, Undersheriff. I say so you took the promotion and he nods. I guess we have to get political now.
He says I guess so. "I just need to know what team your on Michael." He realizes he's running for office now this year with the new guy. I don't know much about the Sheriff, but I do know Michael & his family. Done.
I get a call an hour later at home. I drove off & left my CC on the counter after gassing up.

I go back to town pay for gas & the circuit breaker I needed. Jerry just laughs when I tell him I was gas bagging with the law. I'll pick up the trailer wheels on Monday ,I say. Their swamped.
Michael never made it home, he is at the other end of town now talking to locals at the cafe.

I love small town,small t counties. 7500 sq mi. 3000 people.

 

[Jason73]

Blew a tire off interstate 90 in southwest MN on a Sunday afternoon, trailering back from Sturgis. Of course it was hot, humid and we obviously felt like hell. Some local pulls in behind, asks if we need help. Sure! He happens to be friends with the owner of the tire repair shop. Needless to say but we were back on the road in no time.

 

[AvidIndoorsman]

Cut myself gutting a deer. Knew it needed stitches. By the time I got to town it was late. Called the Doc. This was in the days of a pager. High tech. He was bowling on a league night. Told me where a key was hidden to his office. Had beer in the fridge in the office. He was drunker than I was when he got there and sewed me up. Not much of a scar either.. mtmuley

They still all use pagers

 

[mtmuley]

They still all use pagers

Makes sense. mtmuley

 

[Hem]

Cut myself gutting a deer. Knew it needed stitches. By the time I got to town it was late. Called the Doc. This was in the days of a pager. High tech. He was bowling on a league night. Told me where a key was hidden to his office. Had beer in the fridge in the office. He was drunker than I was when he got there and sewed me up. Not much of a scar either.. mtmuley

Best one yet^^^

 

[Hem]

I still live in the Valley my story is from. Not so small anymore. Gotta lock things up. When I go back to the town I was born in on the Highline it's different. Kinda exhale up there still. mtmuley

2nd best^^^^

 

[Stocker]

The town in southern Illinois my grandparents live in. The bar/restaraunt in town will make you one to go if they know your local. Go in there and Grandpa has to do his walk around and say hi. Stops at damn near every table. Used to be every table.

They sounds like around here, can’t go anywhere without talking while your dinner gets cold. Happens to me quite a bit not around home too.


Last year we were in Laramie, we got up early and were getting the kids something to eat at the continental breakfast. Another couple comes in with their kids, then an older couple. We all ended up being from Nebraska. The younger guy ended up being my neighbors cousin. The old couple said they were from Dunning, NE. (Pop maybe 100) the younger gal said her college roommate was from Dunning. It turns out it was the old couples niece.


I was in Seattle a few years ago with the wife. We sit down for dinner at some crab place on the water and at the table next to us is my seed salesman, his dad lives 5 miles from me. Closest town is 200 people. There may be 150 more in a 20 mile x 20 mile area. The odds of bumping into someone I know somewhere else aren’t great.

 

[Scott85]

My town isn’t as small as some but growing up I got pulled over by the school resource officer just so he could show me a picture of a buck he just killed. This was back in the early days when cell phones just started getting cameras.

 

[longbow51]

Back when the draft was a big deal, I didn't apply for a student deferment; didn't feel that was right.

Got a letter from the lady at the draft board saying she knew I was in school, so she applied for me. And that this year's football team wasn't nearly as good as the one I played on, but the band was still good.

 

[Scott85]

I will say the same school resource officer officer asked me for a pinch of dip many many times, even though we I was under age and on school grounds.

 

[CPAjeff]

Growing up in a small farming/ranching town was the best. During the summer, my weekly ritual went something like this:

Me: Mom, can I ride my bike to the market and get some candy.
Mom: Sure son, say hi to Marie for me.

Off I went on my bike and made a quick stop at the two teller credit union.

Me: Hi Marie - can I please get $5 out of my savings. Oh yeah, Mom says hi.
Marie: Sure thing! Tell your Mom I said hi. You know candy will rot your teeth out, right?!?
Me: Yes ma’am.

Ten minutes later I was headed home with a sack of candy and a soda.

 

[OntarioHunter]

A couple of olden days stories from hunting the Breaks near Roy. Dad would drive us all the way over there from the Flathead after finishing his last graveyard shift at the dam. The first year I was able to hunt (age twelve 1964), we stayed at the now long gone clapboard cattle drive era hotel on the main drag. This "town" was about as close to being a ghost and still have a pulse. The hotel and adjoining cafe were the only occupied buildings besides the post office. I seem to recall the only groceries available was the very limited selection out at Jess's Junction Gas Station. Anyway, we get checked in at the motel and go upstairs to our room. First thing I notice is all the mouse crap. Dad went back downstairs and got a bunch of traps at the desk (tending those snapping things through the night was inspirational for a kid about to hunt his first deer!). Then he pulled back the curtains to see the view was the cafe's brick wall about two and a half feet away. "Boys, if this tinderbox catches fire (and it did eventually burn down), jump out the window and get to the street as fast as possible." Well, okay but Dad was a lot "thicker" than two kids twelve and thirteen years old. "Don't worry about me. I'll make it out." Having established the fire drill, he told us to check out the community toilet at the end of the hall. Mike and I came tearing back to the room. "Dad, you gotta get the police! Someone's been killed in the bathroom!" "Whaaaat!" We ran down to the john and showed him the white clawfoot tub (first one I'd ever seen) blood red inside about half way up. Dad laughed and told us not to worry. It's only the iron in the water. He warned us to stick to milk or pop at the cafe. "Drink that water and you'll barf." Of course, before bed that night when brushing my teeth I had to make sure he was telling the truth. He was.

Next morning at breakfast Dad told us to treat ourselves to anything. Mike and I chose French toast and Dad went with steak & eggs. After wrestling with that piece of meat for several minutes, he went out to the truck and grabbed his KaBar hunting knife. The silver-haired scrawny sack of wrinkles sorry excuse for a waitress came over to the table and challenged Dad: "Whataya think you're doing bringing that filthy deer guttin pig-sticker into my establishment!" Dad thumped the table: "I'm trying to cut up this f***ing piece of range bull you call steak!" That was the first time in my life I heard him use the "f" word. And never again till I was in the Army.

 

[Europe]

When I taught HS in eastern Montana during the eighties we had a box social every spring in the "gym." Look it up. The gym was a WWII surplus quanset hut so small that anyone sitting in the recycled cinema seats on the sidelines had to tuck their feet under the seat to keep them out of play during a basketball game. The floor was not long enough for standard play so it had three ten-second lines: one in the center and one at each end about half way to the free throw circles. Players had to bring the ball forward to the fartherest ten-second line within ten seconds, then they could play back to the center line. After each game the entire community adjorned to the bar next door for pizza. Everyone, even the worst drunks, behaved themselves though the beer flowed freely. We only had 22 kids in the HS. Teams were so small sometimes coaches would run out of players if a few fouled out. The unwritten rule was opposing coach would call over a player and make him kneel at the bench for each player the opposing team was short of (coach had to keep a full team on the floor if he had the boys or it was technical foul). I remember one game that finished the better part of the fourth quarter two-on-two!

thanks to another member for bringing this to my attention, as I missed it. Yes, I do remember sports being a bit different. I did play girls basketball and we either played defense or offense, as we had three players on the defensive end of the court that did not go across the center line and of course the offensive players could not play on the defensive end of the court. The reasoning was it was too strenuous for girls to play "full court". Our fouling out procedure was a bit different than yours, as we were able to keep six girls on the court until the game was over, but the court was short and had three lines.

 

[Nameless Range]

Today, in Boulder, MT, I can go get a delicious chicken fried steak from a restaurant owned by a fellow who I went to high school with and who was my wife’s date to senior prom. I could then go next-door and follow that up with a delicious cinnamon roll made by a gal I went to high school with at her shop. Two minutes from there I could be fishing the same holes I used to go fish on my lunch breaks in high school. There would probably already be other kids fishing there, and there’s a good chance they would be friends with my kids. After that, I could head to the bar and order a steak and a beer from a guy who serves on the same fire department as me. To wind down, two minutes from there, I could take a walk through the cemetery and visit friends now gone. And after that, I could drive a mountain road 15 minutes home, past places I’ve hunted and harvested deer and elk many times over the last 3 decades, and where my kids will too. I would waive at every car I pass, they would waive back too, and I would know most of the folks I crossed paths with, though admittedly less so every day it seems.

There are pros and cons to small towns, and I don’t claim that they are better than other places, but a very big positive is the power of community when Dunbar’s Number is difficult to exceed locally, and a familiarity only surpassed by family is on offer in every little corner of a place.

 

[OntarioHunter]

thanks to another member for bringing this to my attention, as I missed it. Yes, I do remember sports being a bit different. I did play girls basketball and we either played defense or offense, as we had three players on the defensive end of the court that did not go across the center line and of course the offensive players could not play on the defensive end of the court. The reasoning was it was too strenuous for girls to play "full court". Our fouling out procedure was a bit different than yours, as we were able to keep six girls on the court until the game was over, but the court was short and had three lines. To the best of my recollection, all the girls that played on our team were females when they were born.

I also remember "iron man" football for the boys. Sometimes when I am watching a game now I wonder how many players do they need of crying out loud. Especially the Minnesota Vikings. I think they are suiting up more than they are legally able to do .

Sorry Vikingsguy--could not resist

Wow. Interesting. I remember when a girl in my Montana home town took the state to Supreme Court to challenge inequality in school sports. It was a landmark case. As a consequence the state allowed girls basketball and they played exactly the same rules as boys. The state initially thought if they gave girls volleyball that would suffice for equality to boys basketball. It didn't wash. Now they play volleyball while the boys play football. Here and in many states girls wrestling is very big but I don't believe Montana has sanctioned it yet. I will say that I enjoy watching women's collegiate and professional basketball more than men's games. Not just because they're pretty ladies (some not so much) but because it seems to be a game of finesse rather than physically abusing opponents as much as possible.