30 People Share The Most ‘Small Town’ Things They’ve Ever Seen Happen In Real Life
Interview
If you have ever decided to stay for the summer or perhaps have a vacation in the countryside, you know that life absolutely moves at a very different pace. From everyone knowing each other, to random wildlife and farm animals showing up all over the place, rural areas are like no other.
Someone asked “What's the most "small town" thing you've witnessed?” and netizens from the suburbs and countryside shared their best examples. So get comfortable as you read through, upvote your favorites and if you have a memorable small-town experience, share it in the comments! We also got in touch with official_biz to learn more.
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45 people, a group exactly one shy of the entire adult male population, sitting in lawn chairs, on a fence, and on car hoods...
They were patiently waiting outside of the house of the 46th adult male, who had hit his child hard enough to fracture a rib earlier that day, and was known to smack his wife around a bit..
The best part of the story was when he threatened to call the police chief. "If you don't all leave, I'm calling Georgie!"
(Chief) Georgie quickly replied from near the guy's back door... "Present!"
I didn't get to witness the beating itself, apparently it happened a couple of days later. But he definitely spent the whole night in terror.
Beautiful example of male peer pressure doing something about toxic masculinity.
Due to a traffic incident (ie. unfortunate meeting with a large buck) we were "stranded" in a small town for several days. In that time one of the local police officers gave us his number - said call me anytime if you need a lift somewhere. The manager at the hotel we stayed at offered us the same thing, and one of the staff at the hotel flat out offered us her car to use while she was at work. The irony was - it was such a small town everything we needed was within walking distance.
Every single person we met went out of their way to try to help us. To this day (4 years later) we still refer to this as the best bad experience we've ever had. In fact two years ago we went out of our way to swing through that small town again - and they remembered us. We had a nice chat with the mechanic / garage owner who got our vehicle fixed - showed him it was still on the road, running like a top. A small town will renew your faith in humanity.
My mail carrier bringing my dog to my office after she stopped at my house to deliver my mail and my dog, Lefty jumped in her mail truck and refused to get out.
My grandmother lived in a small town. One day she mailed a letter at a box downtown but forgot to put a stamp on it. She did not put a return address either. Mail carrier brought it to her house because he recognized her handwriting. Sorry no dog involved. The mail truck reminded me.
Our FedEx and UPS driver will flag me down when they see me if I'm out and about to give me my package. Everyone waves at Everyone.
My dog also loves my mail lady. I could 100% see this happening if she was able to get out when Jen, the mail carrier, gets here. She throws herself at the door when she hears a package arrive, unfortunately it's usually Amazon, and not Jen
My sister was a carrier for years, she often picked up dogs on her route that had strayed far from home and returned them.
That's a bit weird? The dog was out loose and there was no one at home?
Bored Panda got in touch with official_biz who made the original post and they were kind enough to answer some of our questions. Naturally, we were curious to learn why he asked this question in the first place.
“I was inspired to ask the question after a small-town experience of my own. I'd planned to just answer my own question by putting my experience in the comments. When I woke up to something like 4k comments the next morning, I decided to just let them keep rolling in,” they shared.
We have a village Facebook page. Every time the ice cream man drives into the village, the entire page goes ballistic. People send live updates of where the van is and which direction he's heading. The ice cream man has started accepting DMs so he knows which streets to go down.
Are there any homes for sale in this ice cream loving village?
A guy robbed a bank and everyone knew immediately who he was and the teller got mad at him.
I worked at a prison many years ago. One inmate told me a story that was very similar… He was the robber, and the teller said “dammit Bryan, I’m gonna tell your mother.”
Left the grocery store and forgot a bag. Another customer brought it to my house.
“What happened to me was this: I was visiting my long-time online friend who lives on a small, remote, mostly unknown island with a population close to 2000. When he picked me up from the ferry and we started driving down the island's one road, there was a man jogging, to which my friend rolled down the window and made some small talk. He was like, "Wagwan bro?" and such, which was returned before we drove off. Then he turned to me and very casually said, "That guy's cool... He's running for president."
I’m from a town of less than 2,000 people. When I worked at the grocery store there people would often drop off stuff for my family members because they didn’t want to drive all the way down to our house. I no longer live there but recently got a call from my daughter. She had been stopped for speeding and handed over her license and insurance which happens to be in my mother’s name. The officer goes “Hey, you’re Donnie’s granddaughter! I ain’t gonna write you a ticket but I’m telling Donnie when I see him tomorrow cause we’re going fishing.” She replied “I think I’d rather have the ticket.”
Jip, and no the family will make sure she never speeds again. She will be reminded every holiday and family dinner
Move to a small town. 30 years later, you are still the new guy
I grew up in a small Missouri river town that got wiped out in 1993. After rebuilding, the market became a combination hair salon and live bait shop. It was called Perms & Worms. I saw it in person and I still don't believe it.
Hahaha 😆 love the name. Reminds me when I was a kid visiting my great aunt in Maine and we drove by a hair salon called 'Curl up and Dye.'
The post, as mentioned, garnered over four thousand comments, so we were curious to hear OP’s opinion on why it was so popular. “I guess a lot of people have these very specific, random impressions of things they've seen in small towns that have been burned into their brains because they challenge the assumptions we have about what a normal society should look like. A lot of them are also pretty wholesome.”
My wife grew up in a very very small town. The first time I went with her to her parent’s house, I drove and she was engrossed in reading a book.
“Let’s go in the back way.”
“Where is that?”
“Turn left at Calvin Adams’ store.”
We passed a rural intersection with nothing on the corner. She looks up and punches my arm.
“You missed the turn.”
“There was no store there!”
“Oh, it burned down years ago. Now turn right at Jack Simpson’s house.”
We pass another empty intersection. There is nothing to see but cotton fields and a clump of trees yonder in the distance. She looks up and punches my arm.
“You missed the turn.”
“Aw c’mon, there’s no house here.”
“It’s behind those trees. You can’t see it from the road.”
A couple of minutes later, without looking up, “He doesn’t live there anymore.”
We finally got there and I’m talking to her mom.
“Which way did you come in?”
“We came in the back way. I missed the turn at Calvin Adams’ store.”
She nodded. “It burned down years ago.”
“Then I missed the turn at Jack Simpson’s house.”
Another nod. “You can’t see it from the road.”
There was a long pause and she added, “He doesn’t live there anymore.”
I love my small town! People genuinely care about each other and help each other out. Also one day a year it's Drive your tractor to School day. And the HS kids bring in sheep and bunnies and horses for the elem kids to come pet. It's not perfect but I would not trade it! And no it's not racist. Half Hispanic half white. We all get along! We even have a taco truck that's as good as anything in LA
I grew up in a town of 150 people. Moved away, but I keep in touch.
A friend of mine posted a picture on Facebook a few months ago, tagging another friend: "Hey, Bubba, your pig got loose and is running around the Dollar General parking lot. Come get him!"
People were more surprised that they'd gotten themselves a Dollar General store than they were about Bubba's pig.
A couple days after we moved to the small farming town we live in, we found out who used to have our new (to us) phone number. There was obviously a summer storm brewing outside, and we got a couple calls from people saying stuff like “Ruth, you might want to close your windows, there’s a storm headed your way!” We would just say Ruth doesn’t have this number anymore, introduce ourselves, and tell them thanks for the warning about the storm, we’ll get our windows shut right now. We thought it was kind of sweet, tbh.
“There isn't really much of an outlet to share these with a wider audience so I guess my question gave them a chance to do that. For the people who live in rural, remote, and small towns where those things are considered normal, it can be a neat experience to share about your everyday life in a way that baffles others globally.”
Small town girl here. When we moved here, we really had people talking. Rumor was "Joe's" granddaughter bought the house. No, it was "Bob's" son. They didn't know we had married each other and everyone was right.
We were having a machine shop, that was located in a small town, make a manufacturing machine for us. They could make the individual parts, but had no idea how everything went together. We sent a mechanic to be onsite for several weeks to assemble the machine. First day, he went to the local cafe to get coffee and breakfast. There are several people in there drinking coffee, reading the newspaper, chatting, etc. He goes in and sits at the counter. No one is there to wait on him. Finally, one of the guys says "if you want coffee, you'll have to get it yourself. They ain't open yet."
Way back I lived in a small town. When my friend, who lived two houses down the street, and I were going to go hunting birds in the morning before work, whichever of us was up first would walk into the others house to put coffee on for when he got up.
Heard over the scanner one day. Tourist passing through reports dog on roof at XX address. Can someone go get Frank off the roof please dunno how that son of a gun keeps getting up there”
“As for my favorite comments, the one that stuck with me was the one that said if you called 911 after midnight, you'd be put on hold so the dispatcher could wake up the sheriff. I haven't read through them all yet. that's pretty ambitious. but thanks for the reminder to do that when I need a laugh.”
The traffic on the "main street" of my town is so sparse, two drivers going opposite directions can stop and talk to each other for a few minutes without causing any problem.
Dude moves here, goes to the local garden shop. Loads his pick up with bags of soil, garden implements, et al.
Oops, he forgot his wallet.
Old dude at the store, honest to God, says, "You can stop by and pay tomorrow"
If you are in need of hay, straw or other horse bedding, just call the farmer. He will tell you in which barn and which corner you have to be, you load the stuff, tell him how much you took and pay by Tikkie (sort of Venmo, I guess). Only interaction with a live being are the dog, who will sit next to the truck and count (?) and sometimes some livestock, having their shelter in the same barn.
Lived in a town of about 5,000: A woman walked into the DMV on a Friday, saw that there were 3 people ahead of her and left to come back another time when they weren't so busy.
😂 this one made me laugh so hard, my mum is like this in the country, I’m a full fledged Gold Coast girl, I’m used to busy, I can’t imagine the ease of waiting behind 3 peoole 😂
A “parade” that consisted of like, three goats and four children
The parade was created, so the parents of all the kids, could take a little break.
I taught English in a small town in Japan for a couple of years. One day the principal said they were cancelling classes for the afternoon so the police could come give a safety talk.
As the product of the American school system I was thinking drugs? gangs? STDs?
Bicycle safety. Some of the students had been seen riding two to a bicycle through town. We were reminded that bicycles were for one person only, also wear your helmet and always signal your moves to drivers.
Got a call ... neighbor 5 houses down the road:
"hey can you look out the window and tell me who is walking down the street?"
"yea, that's the guy from Louisdale who is going out with that Felix girl"
"mk, thanks"
I lived in a small town. When I moved there, people would ask, "Whose house did you buy?"
My dogs got out while i was working. the police called my niece's elementary school (she was a 5th grader) to get her to round them up and take them back home.
my mom and dad were divorced, dad bought a dog that had been abused and given cocaine by the then owner, dog did not like people but hated women more. dog got loose dad wasnt home. cops came to my mom, we only lived up the road less than 5 mins away. now cops knew my dad took in abused dogs and that they were usually mean so there's a dozen cop cars surrounding the house cops hiding behind there cars guns at the ready just in case. mom gets there yells' buddy house now!' he stops growling and went to the porch lol its like he was doing his job guarding the house you didn't need that many cops you could have just put one cop there to make sure no one went up to the house he wouldn't have left the yard.... he was a good dog- someone hit him on the head with a shovel in order to steal stuff, never found the bastard who did it
One spring, the front page of the local newspaper's top headline was "Deer finds grass in " The fact that someone had a picture of a deer who found some grass meant that winter might finally be over, which is the big news that everyone cares about.
My fiancé took me to a popular festival in his tiny hometown. Some guy nodded and waved at him on the street. I asked how they knew each other. Fiancé told me he was the only other guy in town with the same name as him.
Also, his dad told him not to sleep with a particular chick because she might be his half-sister.
One day, I was walking down the street in our small town and a guy stopped me and asked me for my watch. And I gave it to him because he was the local jeweler and knew I needed a new band.
Oh, freaked out my big-city SIL when I named all 40ish people in a diner.
Tbf, I technically don't live in a big city, but I'm a little freaked out by someone knowing that many people and somehow he is able to remember all their names. 🤯
Where I grew up if we called 911 after midnight the operator would have us hold so she could wake up the sheriff.
My local beer store had dedicated snowmobile parking.
My prom was in a barn
When we moved to a town of about 1,000 people, the local newspaper published our family portrait on the front page to announce the new preacher had arrived. Not a small pic either; it took up easily a sixth of the front page.
My sisters and I would ride our bikes all over town with our gaggle of friends. Mom would get phone calls from strangers telling her they just saw us, and we were fine. It was just how the moms helped each other keep track of their kids.
Nice to know that you're supported and your community has your back.
It happened at my small town bar. It was a busy night and the bartender went up around asking if anyone wanted a drink before she went downstairs to restock some beer. After she came back this guy started snapping and whistling and bitching at her for being gone for so long.
Half the crowd jumped to the waitress's defense and started calling this guy names. He eventually got booed out of the bar.
I am the connecting point of 2 *MASSIVE* families in a smallish town. (About 20,000)
I have had people I never met figure out who I was based on my resemblance to my dad and brothers.
A cop came to my first apartment for a noise complaint... he was my cousin...
My girlfriend at the time, needed an ultrasound to check her gaul bladder. I went with her, the machines were all in the maternity ward... My phone was blowing up from family asking when we were expecting *before we left the building*...
My dad owned THE drivers ed school for like 20+ years. We can go literally no where without meeting at least 3 people he taught to drive.
Once got pulled over for, well, using a roundabout properly, but they're new to the area. The cop told me I'd signaled weirdly so he thought I was drunk... (Left going in then right when I exited at the 3rd exit. I explained that's how you do it... He checked my license, realized my dad taught him to drive and said "So uh... I'm gonna bet Mr.Driver's son knows how to use a roundabout better than me. Have a nice day."
If he put on his left turn signal to enter said roundabout and his right turn signal to exit said roundabout, then wouldn't he be exiting towards the middle of the roundabout? I'm trying to picture this in my head, but it isn't making sense to my extremely tired self.
The radio station announces townspeople’s birthdays, and will say their name and job, eg, it’s Janice Smith’s birthday, the fifth grade teacher.
A party in a potato field, it was only lighted by car headlights.
The entire school had 27 students comprised of the offspring from twelve families.
A game of kiss-chase is chaotic when you're related to more than half of the players. lol
Town drunk was paralyzed and used a motorized wheelchair to get around. I was driving home one Saturday night and said town drunk was passed out in his wheelchair doing circles almost directly in the town square. Had to call his brother who came and picked him up on a rollback truck. Strapped him down and drove off into the cold dark night.
I entered a general store in a small town, and the owner was playing billiards with some of the other men in town. I asked to buy a coke, and the guy smiled from across the hall and asked me to just take what I needed and leave some cash on the counter, assuming it was approximately the correct amount.
I lost my wallet, went to DMV to replace my license. The guy there asked me if i had any other ID, but i didn't. He said "you know, you look just like your daddy" and issued me a new license anyway.
Growing up in a town of 2,500 in the 80’s and early 90’s:
1. Several times in 3rd and 4th grade, we had to evacuate the playground and run inside because the farmer next door’s bull got loose again.
2. well-known local crime wave: the inmates used to break out of jail, go pick up a pizza, and bring it back for everyone. This ended when they finally built a new jail.
3. Our Chevy dealership never locked the new cars on their lot. Want to go consider options after-hours? Just climb on in and see how the interior feels.
4. I distinctly remember triplet calves being on the front page of our once-a-week town newspaper.
5. On designated days, all the farm boys would drive tractors to school. Pulling into the parking lot in the morning, it looked like the set of Footloose or something.
A friend's great aunt lived in a tiny town about 40-50 miles from the suburb we live in, we went to visit her and she had a newspaper laying out and I asked if I could read it.
They had a lost and found section. It read like this:
FOUND
A child's left glove, green then gave an address. I couldn't believe it.
Cows escaped a farm and were hanging out in a field nearby and occasionally wandering into the road and holding up traffic. Took like a week or so to get them to wander back home
“The cinema is a really long drive though, don’t know if I feel up for that.” -Me
The cinema is a 15 minute drive
Old people who've never been out of the town.. ever
The grocery store social hour.
In a big city, the store can be packed, but it's basically 100 different individuals/groups going about their day.
In a small town, half the time, it's hard to get through the aisle because two people are chit chatting, regularly they both will stop talking to each other to say hi to someone else waking by.
Everybody knows everybody, and everybody goes to the grocery store.
I am from a town of roughly 500 people. The primary industry was leather tanning and the town really peaked in the 1950s. Our school was K-12 and my graduation class was 7. I was one of 2 that went to college. I ended up doing grad school across the country at University of Arizona and it was an amazing experience and I’m still out here. When I was home for 4th of July and wearing my University tshirt more people that I can count on my hand asked me what Arizona was and where it was.
Curious about what was actually taught at this K-12 school? How does one end up in grad school and yet at least 6 people out of 500 in the town, have never heard of the state of Arizona, never mind where it is located?
Quoting my dad because he grew up in the Appalachian hills of hillbilly, Pennsylvania country:
"The grocery store was on the other side of the hill and our football field was on some rented out land from a kind dairy farmer."
I honestly believe this is how we were supposed to live. No huge bustling cities, just small towns where everyone knows everyone. Actual human connections.
I lived in a huge bustling city. Each neighborhood had a distinct flavour and everyone knew each other and looked after each other. Cities aren't the problem. Corporations and developers create horrible unlivable spaces in cities and it all falls apart.
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Visiting the small town where I was born but not raised after my parents retired and moved back. Woman at a store sees my name on my credit card, which is the same name as my father's, and proceeds to tell me that she used to date him in high school.
My great uncle on my mother's side went to elementary school and remained friends with my grandmother on my dad's side. I didn't know this until they were both in their 90s.
Load More Replies... What a great post. I grew up in a small town of about 12,000 people. I haven't lived there for 40 years. But whenever I go back to visit, people ask me how my dog is.....They are mistaking me for my mother, who used to take her dog for a 5 mile walk every day 20 years ago!
My dad was the pastor in a town in northern Vermont with a total population of about 1600, but it's split up into three villages a few miles apart. 12,000 isn't big but it's hard for me to think of it as small
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Well of course, that's why it's such a short list.
Load More Replies... In my town, the kids hang out in the corn field and tell scary stories of someone they call "he who walks behind the rows".
Small Island, 4.5k population in 4.5k square km. 4 year old daughter wanders local agricultural show relatively unsupervised. Loses her hat, which has her name "Poppy" on it. Hat comes home in her Daycare bag the next day.
Last summer, my mom and I helped her parents move from MN to AZ. We drove their car and a u-haul, and had their two senior dogs. The car broke down just outside of a very small town, people directed us to "Jeff's store" which was a Ford dealership (with only 2 Fords on the lot XD). They told us the car would take at least 2 weeks to fix, so we looked at trading it in instead. We got a sedan with broken ac, they offered to fix it for free but it would have to wait till the next day. We couldn't get a hotel room (in the only hotel) because of a festival a town over, so everyone there started calling almost everyone in town to see if anyone had a spare room or cabin or something in the area. Nothing worked out and we ended up heading out that night, but every single person there stayed 4 hours after closing to help us get set up and back on the road safely. People in small towns care about each other and it's so refreshing sometimes.
My husband and I visited a little mountain town in New Mexico called Mogollon. We chatted with a lady who had a store there and asked how many people lived there. She said there were 13 year round residents. There used to be more, but her sister moved farther up the mountain. She said it was getting too crowded, and she wasn't a "city girl."
After generations in Brooklyn, my parents kept us pretty rootless when I was a kid. One town where we lived was less than ten miles south of the New York/Quebec border. About 80% of the residents had French surnames. Some sets of cousins would have the original name and others would have a phonetic spelling of the pronunciation. Years later I realized that even some families, like the Martins and Parents, were French too. Now when I think of anyone from there who didn't have a French surname, I wonder how they ended up there
Big cities can totally feel like small towns. Where I grew up was a large city (and county) it felt small when you dated around because of who we knew through friends, family, work, school, etc. Obviously not saying we knew so many people in a county of millions more that through our ethnic groups and our interests we get to know the same people. Or people who know people. The city I'm in now is well known worldwide and has about a million people but through the density of scenes and areas in the city you kind of match or run into the same people so I don't even bother anymore. lmao
In-laws are from a small town. National news when one of the neighbors assaulted someone in a bar with roadkill.
The smaller the town, the nicer the people, IMO. I sold flowers to retail florists. In the city, people will brush you off. In rural America, I have had people that I am soliciting invite me over for dinner. When you are on a rural road, strangers wave at you as you pass their vehicles. The other salespeople were content to punch the clock and work the phones. I did that most of the time, but a couple times a year, I would hit the road. I visited florists in small towns in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming, Nebraska and Kansas.
From a small town in CO (~8k people), went to a VERY small school (room for 6 students) in a VERY small town (450 year-round residents) in far Northern Wisconsin. On my first day in town, I stopped at a bar and the bartender seemed surprised to see a new face. After starting a conversation, he said, “Oh, you’re the guy from Colorado, we heard you were coming.” Everyone knew everyone else, bad gas travels fast in a small town.
I grew up in a very small town of about 1,000 people. My dad owned the only fast food restaurant in town. We were a popular tourist town in the summer, but in the off months, it was just townies and we were rarely busy. I worked there. We had so many locals who always ordered the same thing so we have tickets on the wheel above the grill that some like, "Bob Jones" and I knew exactly what to make. No uncommon to have a few tickets on the wheel with just a name on them.
Moved to a small town a few years ago. A couple of things I've noticed: trying to fill a government form when your address is 'the white house next to the pink house (note that the white house is now painted yellow, and the pink house is painted green, but if you were to change that description people would get confused, so the white house next to the pink house it will remain), is oodles of fun. Shortly after I moved I dropped a $50.00 bill in the supermarket without realizing it. Went back a couple of hours later, and as soon as I walked in the cashier handed it to me without even me having to ask for it. I think I'm still not forgiven for having been surprised by that gesture.
When I went with my ex to visit his hometown in the Blueridge Mountains, I went with his mom one day while she got a haircut and went to the local Walmart. The hairdresser was working in her house, and then I saw her on the way out from the Walmart. That's when I realized how small his town is, compared to where I live. Phoenix, AZ. Little over a million people. You go to the same Costco every week and about the only same people you see are the workers, if that!
My mother grew up in a small town and lived next door to the town mailman. People would send vacation postcards home with notes on the bottom saying things like, "Herman, stop reading this and deliver the mail!"
My Mum & Dad moved to a small village in Derbyshire, that was 20+ years ago, they are still the ‘new folks’ on their lane. If you’ve not got three generations in the graveyard then you are ‘new’. At first it was odd, now it’s kinda nice. I visited one weekend and was stood in the Post Office / General Store / DIY shop and listened to the lady in front of me describing a major theft in the village, it sounded serious, turns out a villager left a bottle of Coke on the roof of her car when she was bringing her shopping in, it got taken….. major theft! I refrained from telling them about my house in Manchester that had at least three dealers within spitting distance and losing a bottle of coke would be a nice quiet night 😂
My wife's hometown is about 1500 people. Her dad got arrested one afternoon and had to spend the night in jail to see the judge the next day. He started complaining in the early evening about needed to go home and put the cows up. Finally, the deputy says, "Okay Bart, go home and put the cows up but come back here when you're done." And, of course, that's what Bart did - I mean where's he gonna hide?
I grew up in a pretty small town, but not as small as some of these, probably a few thousand people, maybe 5K? We had two traffic lights on the edge of our town where a main road goes by, we had one grocery store, a bowling alley, a one screen movie theater that showed movies around the time they came out on video, a gorgeous gazebo roundabout, two pizza places but not at the same time (Gino’s when I was a kid and Fox’s when I was a teen). You could walk anywhere in town, from one end to the other. Kids were bussed in from about 30 min in every direction so we lived quite far from some friends. But our claim to fame and the reason our town existed in the first place was a Fort from the French and Indian War. We had Fort Days which was a spectacular 3 day event. Many people were related to one another but my parents had moved there to have a family so I wasn’t related to anyone. When my mom sold our childhood house a boy I graduated with bought it. He had a lawn mowing business.
Bought a house in a village of about 900 people. Before I moved in I already had all the dirt on the ongoing fight between the neighbors and had the police called on me because of stuff purposely left in the neighbors yard by the people who moved as a parting gesture. Welcome to the neighborhood!
Every Christmas, the fire truck drives down main street and the Chief (dressed like Santa) throws candy to the kids. We all get lawn chairs and wait for him to come by. It is a Very Big Deal.
My mum's town does this too. They actually go to a few streets, so on Facebook there were people posting when they came down theirs and where they were headed next.
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One of the funniest parts to me about moving to such a small town was everyone knowing which house you lived in. And snowmobiles going through the drive thru at the McDonalds near highway. There's a lot of good things, the local cops telling you that your registration is about to expire or you have a headlight out instead of issuing a ticket
Im kinda confused about people calling their town small when they have like 2,000 people there lol. My town only has like 450 people.
When you go from a suburb of 30 000, 2 000 is definitely small!
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Never ask for directions in small-town New England. "Take a left at Audrey's travel agency and turn right when you see the big dog." Audrey's travel agency has an awning that says Mary's Styling, a window that says Lenora's contracting and is actually now Rita's Electrical supplies. And the dog died in 1997. My [perosonal info removed] are from New England, which is why you can find pancake batter in the milk carton labeled, "soup" in their fridge.
Yep moved to a small town in Missouri 30 years ago from Los Angeles. Never looked back!!
And locals still call you "the new guy".
Load More Replies... I'm a city girl always have been. Years ago my now ex-husband drug me up to his home state (I was young & dumb). We of course moved to an extremely rural area. There was a "mall" 50 miles away, small one story. One of the friends I made up there through work (now one of my best friends of 20+ year's; if I had a brother he'd be it.) Anyway our work Christmas party was in the closet major city (90 miles away) the day after the party we went to the local mall to do some Christmas shopping. He'd been there before I hadn't. As we started to walk around he was excitedly going on about the mall being two stories (he was thinking I'd be completely wowed.) Nope just a normal mall to me. Just for the record I left that state 15 years ago & moved to a city. My friend & I keep in touch of course & have had a few visits as well.
My grandmother moved from a town in Kentucky with a population of about 4,000 to a town in California with a population of about 400. Spent many a Christmas and summer vacation visiting her, just outside of Yosemite National Park.
The optimal community size is about 150 people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number Not sure about the genetics though, they would probably have to interbreed with other communities to avoid looking like the UK royal family :-)
I honestly believe this is how we were supposed to live. No huge bustling cities, just small towns where everyone knows everyone. Actual human connections.
I lived in a huge bustling city. Each neighborhood had a distinct flavour and everyone knew each other and looked after each other. Cities aren't the problem. Corporations and developers create horrible unlivable spaces in cities and it all falls apart.
Load More Replies... Visiting the small town where I was born but not raised after my parents retired and moved back. Woman at a store sees my name on my credit card, which is the same name as my father's, and proceeds to tell me that she used to date him in high school.
My great uncle on my mother's side went to elementary school and remained friends with my grandmother on my dad's side. I didn't know this until they were both in their 90s.
Load More Replies... What a great post. I grew up in a small town of about 12,000 people. I haven't lived there for 40 years. But whenever I go back to visit, people ask me how my dog is.....They are mistaking me for my mother, who used to take her dog for a 5 mile walk every day 20 years ago!
My dad was the pastor in a town in northern Vermont with a total population of about 1600, but it's split up into three villages a few miles apart. 12,000 isn't big but it's hard for me to think of it as small
Load More Replies... Well of course, that's why it's such a short list.
Load More Replies... In my town, the kids hang out in the corn field and tell scary stories of someone they call "he who walks behind the rows".
Small Island, 4.5k population in 4.5k square km. 4 year old daughter wanders local agricultural show relatively unsupervised. Loses her hat, which has her name "Poppy" on it. Hat comes home in her Daycare bag the next day.
Last summer, my mom and I helped her parents move from MN to AZ. We drove their car and a u-haul, and had their two senior dogs. The car broke down just outside of a very small town, people directed us to "Jeff's store" which was a Ford dealership (with only 2 Fords on the lot XD). They told us the car would take at least 2 weeks to fix, so we looked at trading it in instead. We got a sedan with broken ac, they offered to fix it for free but it would have to wait till the next day. We couldn't get a hotel room (in the only hotel) because of a festival a town over, so everyone there started calling almost everyone in town to see if anyone had a spare room or cabin or something in the area. Nothing worked out and we ended up heading out that night, but every single person there stayed 4 hours after closing to help us get set up and back on the road safely. People in small towns care about each other and it's so refreshing sometimes.
My husband and I visited a little mountain town in New Mexico called Mogollon. We chatted with a lady who had a store there and asked how many people lived there. She said there were 13 year round residents. There used to be more, but her sister moved farther up the mountain. She said it was getting too crowded, and she wasn't a "city girl."
After generations in Brooklyn, my parents kept us pretty rootless when I was a kid. One town where we lived was less than ten miles south of the New York/Quebec border. About 80% of the residents had French surnames. Some sets of cousins would have the original name and others would have a phonetic spelling of the pronunciation. Years later I realized that even some families, like the Martins and Parents, were French too. Now when I think of anyone from there who didn't have a French surname, I wonder how they ended up there
Big cities can totally feel like small towns. Where I grew up was a large city (and county) it felt small when you dated around because of who we knew through friends, family, work, school, etc. Obviously not saying we knew so many people in a county of millions more that through our ethnic groups and our interests we get to know the same people. Or people who know people. The city I'm in now is well known worldwide and has about a million people but through the density of scenes and areas in the city you kind of match or run into the same people so I don't even bother anymore. lmao
In-laws are from a small town. National news when one of the neighbors assaulted someone in a bar with roadkill.
The smaller the town, the nicer the people, IMO. I sold flowers to retail florists. In the city, people will brush you off. In rural America, I have had people that I am soliciting invite me over for dinner. When you are on a rural road, strangers wave at you as you pass their vehicles. The other salespeople were content to punch the clock and work the phones. I did that most of the time, but a couple times a year, I would hit the road. I visited florists in small towns in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming, Nebraska and Kansas.
From a small town in CO (~8k people), went to a VERY small school (room for 6 students) in a VERY small town (450 year-round residents) in far Northern Wisconsin. On my first day in town, I stopped at a bar and the bartender seemed surprised to see a new face. After starting a conversation, he said, “Oh, you’re the guy from Colorado, we heard you were coming.” Everyone knew everyone else, bad gas travels fast in a small town.
I grew up in a very small town of about 1,000 people. My dad owned the only fast food restaurant in town. We were a popular tourist town in the summer, but in the off months, it was just townies and we were rarely busy. I worked there. We had so many locals who always ordered the same thing so we have tickets on the wheel above the grill that some like, "Bob Jones" and I knew exactly what to make. No uncommon to have a few tickets on the wheel with just a name on them.
Moved to a small town a few years ago. A couple of things I've noticed: trying to fill a government form when your address is 'the white house next to the pink house (note that the white house is now painted yellow, and the pink house is painted green, but if you were to change that description people would get confused, so the white house next to the pink house it will remain), is oodles of fun. Shortly after I moved I dropped a $50.00 bill in the supermarket without realizing it. Went back a couple of hours later, and as soon as I walked in the cashier handed it to me without even me having to ask for it. I think I'm still not forgiven for having been surprised by that gesture.
When I went with my ex to visit his hometown in the Blueridge Mountains, I went with his mom one day while she got a haircut and went to the local Walmart. The hairdresser was working in her house, and then I saw her on the way out from the Walmart. That's when I realized how small his town is, compared to where I live. Phoenix, AZ. Little over a million people. You go to the same Costco every week and about the only same people you see are the workers, if that!
My mother grew up in a small town and lived next door to the town mailman. People would send vacation postcards home with notes on the bottom saying things like, "Herman, stop reading this and deliver the mail!"
My Mum & Dad moved to a small village in Derbyshire, that was 20+ years ago, they are still the ‘new folks’ on their lane. If you’ve not got three generations in the graveyard then you are ‘new’. At first it was odd, now it’s kinda nice. I visited one weekend and was stood in the Post Office / General Store / DIY shop and listened to the lady in front of me describing a major theft in the village, it sounded serious, turns out a villager left a bottle of Coke on the roof of her car when she was bringing her shopping in, it got taken….. major theft! I refrained from telling them about my house in Manchester that had at least three dealers within spitting distance and losing a bottle of coke would be a nice quiet night 😂
My wife's hometown is about 1500 people. Her dad got arrested one afternoon and had to spend the night in jail to see the judge the next day. He started complaining in the early evening about needed to go home and put the cows up. Finally, the deputy says, "Okay Bart, go home and put the cows up but come back here when you're done." And, of course, that's what Bart did - I mean where's he gonna hide?
I grew up in a pretty small town, but not as small as some of these, probably a few thousand people, maybe 5K? We had two traffic lights on the edge of our town where a main road goes by, we had one grocery store, a bowling alley, a one screen movie theater that showed movies around the time they came out on video, a gorgeous gazebo roundabout, two pizza places but not at the same time (Gino’s when I was a kid and Fox’s when I was a teen). You could walk anywhere in town, from one end to the other. Kids were bussed in from about 30 min in every direction so we lived quite far from some friends. But our claim to fame and the reason our town existed in the first place was a Fort from the French and Indian War. We had Fort Days which was a spectacular 3 day event. Many people were related to one another but my parents had moved there to have a family so I wasn’t related to anyone. When my mom sold our childhood house a boy I graduated with bought it. He had a lawn mowing business.
Bought a house in a village of about 900 people. Before I moved in I already had all the dirt on the ongoing fight between the neighbors and had the police called on me because of stuff purposely left in the neighbors yard by the people who moved as a parting gesture. Welcome to the neighborhood!
Every Christmas, the fire truck drives down main street and the Chief (dressed like Santa) throws candy to the kids. We all get lawn chairs and wait for him to come by. It is a Very Big Deal.
My mum's town does this too. They actually go to a few streets, so on Facebook there were people posting when they came down theirs and where they were headed next.
Load More Replies... One of the funniest parts to me about moving to such a small town was everyone knowing which house you lived in. And snowmobiles going through the drive thru at the McDonalds near highway. There's a lot of good things, the local cops telling you that your registration is about to expire or you have a headlight out instead of issuing a ticket
Im kinda confused about people calling their town small when they have like 2,000 people there lol. My town only has like 450 people.
When you go from a suburb of 30 000, 2 000 is definitely small!
Load More Replies... Never ask for directions in small-town New England. "Take a left at Audrey's travel agency and turn right when you see the big dog." Audrey's travel agency has an awning that says Mary's Styling, a window that says Lenora's contracting and is actually now Rita's Electrical supplies. And the dog died in 1997. My [perosonal info removed] are from New England, which is why you can find pancake batter in the milk carton labeled, "soup" in their fridge.
Yep moved to a small town in Missouri 30 years ago from Los Angeles. Never looked back!!
And locals still call you "the new guy".
Load More Replies... I'm a city girl always have been. Years ago my now ex-husband drug me up to his home state (I was young & dumb). We of course moved to an extremely rural area. There was a "mall" 50 miles away, small one story. One of the friends I made up there through work (now one of my best friends of 20+ year's; if I had a brother he'd be it.) Anyway our work Christmas party was in the closet major city (90 miles away) the day after the party we went to the local mall to do some Christmas shopping. He'd been there before I hadn't. As we started to walk around he was excitedly going on about the mall being two stories (he was thinking I'd be completely wowed.) Nope just a normal mall to me. Just for the record I left that state 15 years ago & moved to a city. My friend & I keep in touch of course & have had a few visits as well.
My grandmother moved from a town in Kentucky with a population of about 4,000 to a town in California with a population of about 400. Spent many a Christmas and summer vacation visiting her, just outside of Yosemite National Park.
The optimal community size is about 150 people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number Not sure about the genetics though, they would probably have to interbreed with other communities to avoid looking like the UK royal family :-)
