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Could You Move to a Small Town


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Perhaps the thread has just pivoted, but a weekend home in a small town, and living in a small town are about as opposite as you can get.  Saying that that you want a second home in Rockport or Vermont is like a frequent vacation. Living permanently in those towns can suck.

If you ever visit these small towns, you also quickly learn that the only young-ish adults are people that moved there because it was their dream. Current adults that grew up in that town got the f out as soon as they could. 

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Used to race in the Big Bend Open Road Challenge in the 90's.  DPS shuts down 285 from Fort Stockton to Sanderson.  Start in Fort Stockton, drive in your specified class, get official time for first leg in Sanderson.  Drive back for finish.  No electronic/computer assisted odometer.  I had a navigator with a stop watch, book with road markers, HP calculator.  Pretty desolate area.  The cactus is fierce out there.  A couple guys brought a new Viper GTS, got too much lift under the body and spun off the road.  When trailered back to town, it was wrapped in old barb wire fence and inside/outside covered in cactus spines.  

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On 3/6/2023 at 10:09 AM, Hefeweizen said:

No, Pacific Grove.  Carmel is a little out of my means unless I want to live in a tent.  But the whole peninsula is a nice place to be.  Hell, seaside and marina are “affordable” by Cali standards, and are nice places and pretty safe.  Only area nearby that is rough is Salinas, and that’s a solid 30 minute drive away.
 

I have a friend whose adult kids work remote from Montana and love it.  I couldn’t take the winters.  

PG is a lovely place.  Had a friend who lived there before he passed away.    

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8 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Perhaps the thread has just pivoted, but a weekend home in a small town, and living in a small town are about as opposite as you can get.  Saying that that you want a second home in Rockport or Vermont is like a frequent vacation. Living permanently in those towns can suck.

If you ever visit these small towns, you also quickly learn that the only young-ish adults are people that moved there because it was their dream. Current adults that grew up in that town got the f out as soon as they could. 

that's part of the value of a tourist town though, you get people who grew up there, moved out and worked and now are moving back to help take care of their parents or the ranch or who moved back because of smaller town for kids and can work remotely.

that's for tourist towns vs a true middle of nowhere small town. that is not at all applicable for somewhere like Avinger which is still 40 min from Longview and Marshall, 30 min to Atlanta, etc.

 

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On 3/6/2023 at 5:58 AM, Armybrat said:

Being a military brat, I didn’t really have a hometown growing up before Dad retired to Austin when I was in high school. 
So we regarded his very small hometown as our permanent address up until that time (his parents were still residents there). 
Graham, Missouri had a population of about 190 then, and less than that now. This is what one side of the main business street looked like in the early 1950s as I remember it. Only one of those buildings - on the left - still exists.

98CF3CD5-EB97-4BC7-AA12-5E5841346ADC.jpeg

Not too far away from Skidmore, where Ken Rex McElroy engaged in depredations for many years.  If you still have kin in that area, they might have had their livestock stolen by him back in the 70's and 80's.  Or maybe bought a hunting dog from him.  

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3 minutes ago, Carl Spackler said:

Not too far away from Skidmore, where Ken Rex McElroy engaged in depredations for many years.  If you still have kin in that area, they might have had their livestock stolen by him back in the 70's and 80's.  Or maybe bought a hunting dog from him.  

That is an absolutely crazy-ass story.  I had some good buddies at ISU who grew up just across the border from there in Iowa, and it's been on my radar for years.  The documentary was really interesting.

That far northern Missouri/far southern Iowa area is fucking weird in a way that's hard to describe if you've never been there.

Edited by Al_4_ISU
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1 hour ago, Carl Spackler said:

Not too far away from Skidmore, where Ken Rex McElroy engaged in depredations for many years.  If you still have kin in that area, they might have had their livestock stolen by him back in the 70's and 80's.  Or maybe bought a hunting dog from him.  

Good friend of my grandparents went bird hunting with McElroy a few times, and he occasionally showed up in town to eat at the local cafe. 
Said friend was a crack shot & decorated WW2 combat veteran, so McElroy wouldn’t mess with him. 

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1 hour ago, Al_4_ISU said:

That is an absolutely crazy-ass story.  I had some good buddies at ISU who grew up just across the border from there in Iowa, and it's been on my radar for years.  The documentary was really interesting.

That far northern Missouri/far southern Iowa area is fucking weird in a way that's hard to describe if you've never been there.

Yes indeed, that area of NW Misery is weird. Even makes aggy seem almost civilized. 
My Grandpa in front of his auto repair garage in Graham about 1950:

 

CC4229BE-1A70-43E2-91A4-78F6B6847C27.jpeg

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On 3/15/2023 at 2:28 PM, SHOOTER12 said:

I remember when I worked in Kentucky back in 79-80 I had the shock of my life when I moved there. I was living in Lebanon, which thinking back, I don't recall EVER seeing any person of color. I was working on a cross country transmission line so some days the trip to work could be 90 miles away. Anyway, one of the little burgs I drove through had a sign at each end of town which read "N***** Don't Let Sundown Catch Your Black Ass Here". Needless to say I nearly ran the pickup off in ditch the first time I saw it. It wasn't just some small sign either, the damned yhing had to be 16 X 20. Didn't think I'd ever forget the name of that shitehole, but alas, senility calls. I want to say Danbury, Denwall, Danville, "D" something. 

Being from a small South Texas town I had seen some racism but never dreamed that the crap in Kentucky still existed at that time. Damned disgusting.

*not even close name wise, Rayburn, Raymond,  something like that...

When I was at Ft. Knox in the early 90s the orientation for incoming troops included warning to the black soldiers as to which towns they should not go to.  They weren't strictly off limits but it was made very clear that bad should would very likely happen to you if you went there at any time of day.  The one I remember was Shelbyville.

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On 3/23/2023 at 9:40 AM, Al_4_ISU said:

That is an absolutely crazy-ass story.  I had some good buddies at ISU who grew up just across the border from there in Iowa, and it's been on my radar for years.  The documentary was really interesting.

That far northern Missouri/far southern Iowa area is fucking weird in a way that's hard to describe if you've never been there.

I read In Broad Daylight a couple of years ago and its a great book. Here is his wikipedia page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_McElroy

The TL:DR version is the local town bully/fucktard keeps getting away with crimes due to technicalities/intimidating witnesses. Eventually the townspeople have enough, he goes to the local bar, leaves and is shot with 30-40 witnesses but nobody saw a thing. 

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I say I live in Nacogdoches,  but actually live here...now that's small

PISGAH, TX (NACOGDOCHES COUNTY).Pisgah, a rural community on Farm Road 1878, ten miles northeast of Nacogdoches in northeastern Nacogdoches, was established before 1900 and named for the biblical Pisgah. A school was in operation by 1904, when it had an enrollment of sixteen. During the mid-1930s Pisgah had a church, a store, and a number of houses. After World War II most of the residents moved away, and by the early 1990s only a church and a few scattered houses remained in the area. No population estimates were available.

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On 3/23/2023 at 8:52 AM, Al_4_ISU said:

There's something about the desert I've always connected to.  My old man has a place in Tucson and so most of my desert-ing has taken place in Arizona, but I've been eyeing a "someday" trip to hike both Guadalupe Peak and a day or 2 in Big Bend, with a stop in Marfa in between.  Being as Valentine's on the route, I think there's a fair chance I stop for a beer someday.  If it's still there.

In 2020 I went on a road trip from Dallas to Carlsbad Caverns then went to the Guadalupe Mountains and finished in Marfa before heading home. I fell in love with it man it's an amazing area of Texas. Last 4th of July I was in Marfa and checked out the observatory in Fort Davis. This summer my wife is doing an overseas trip with her sisters so I'll probably head down there again.

Get breakfast and/or lunch at Marfa Burrito and then finish the day at either Convenience West or Marfa Spirit Co on steak night. Or both. 

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