Some perks of living in a small town..

[Tarheel Heather]

Actually it's not that small, but a lot smaller than Charlotte.

Dh went to get haircut and went to pay with his debit card. Well they only take cash or a check. The lady let him leave go to an ATM for cash. That wouldn't happen before.

I went to the skate shop yeasterday to get the kids wrist guards. They were sold out. The guy at the shop gave my son a pair to borrow until his order comes in. How nice is that!

Just a few perks, plus there are no water restrictions which is also nice!

[Danestress]

Wait! How can you be a Tarheel and live in SC? Do you live near Charlotte, Heather?

Dana

[Mrs. H.]

The nice man at the hardware store will "hold on" to something I came in looking for last week, but they were out of.

The elderly gentleman that bags groceries at our grocery store knows all my kids by name, asks about them when I'm missing one, and calls me "gal".

The librarian asks how my tomatoes are doing.

The lady at the post office wants to know how old the baby is now.

When one of my children (who shall remain nameless) left the van door open (not unlocked, WIDE OPEN!) for over an hour while we were in the grocery store, nothing was missing...especially not the van!


Yup...I love me some small-town livin'. :D

[Tarheel Heather]

Wait! How can you be a Tarheel and live in SC? Do you live near Charlotte, Heather?

Dana


We just moved from Charlotte. We lived there 9 years. Our family is all up there. Dh and I both native North Carolinians.

[abbeyej]

I guess I'm amused...

When we lived in Los Angeles, I called our favorite Thai restaurant (before caller ID) and the woman who owned it answered. Shortly after I started speaking, she said, "I know who you are! I know where you live! Thirty minutes!" And sure enough, our food arrived half an hour later, just as we wanted it with some extra treat she'd added as well. At one point dh and I moved away for most of a year then came back, but lived in a different part of town. We came in almost two years later with a baby in tow and she looked at us and said, "I wondered why you no come and see me! Who is that?" (pointing at the baby) lol...

Here in Atlanta, when I go to Trader Joe's, the employees know my kids by name and ask how ballet exams or Lego tournaments (whatever they knew was coming up) have gone.

Ds left the car door *open* when we went into a restaurant, and when we came back out and discovered it, not a thing had happened.

The clerks and owners of the children's bookstore here know my kids by name, hold books for them, make specific recommendations...

When we lived in Paris for a few months, the Greek couple that owned the bakery next door to our apartment building gave us cookies every day, and quickly knew our favorites.

Another time when I was a teenager and in Paris, I got ill and had to sit down on some steps near a monument. A woman came up to me and pressed a Mary medallion into my hand and told me she would pray for me.

Even the big cities are full of real people. They're full of kindness. Yes, they can be busy and anonymous, but the people can also be kind and generous. Actually, lol, our absolutely *worst* experience of humanity was the year dh and I spent in a particular small town. It was *horrible*. (And I have no delusions that "most" small towns are like that one. It was simply awful on its own.)

[Remudamom]

Here's one- the mailman will bring packages into your house, put them on the kitchen table and later asks "Where were you, I hollered?"

Or if you have mutual friends over for lunch he comes in and sits a while to visit with them too.

He will argue theology with dh never-ending.

Drawback, this will give visiting mothers from the city a heart attack "SOME MAN JUST WALKED INTO YOUR KITCHEN AND WALKED OUT AGAIN!"

He also checked in on our piano teacher daily when she was home alone and recovering from surgery. Our mailman is unique, we know him, his wife, his parents, children and grandchildren.

He just retired, I don't know about this new mailman, we only know three generations of his family.

[Mrs. H.]

Lol, that is too funny about the mailman...I forgot to mention our mail lady here. We love her too, and yes, she comes right up to the back door with our packages, but she would only come in if the door was already open (that's the norm here). If it's closed, she would knock first.

[Jeannie in NJ]

once when my car wouldn't start, our mailman opened up the hood and did whatever to get it started and then delieved our mail.
Also, a couple of times I have gone shopping without any cash or credit cards and the store let my take whatever I was buying and then call when I got home with my credit card number.

Also, heaven forbid that I would ever go to the food store without my son. All the empoyees say that they miss him too much when he is not with me.

[Tarheel Heather]

I guess I'm amused...



Even the big cities are full of real people. They're full of kindness. Yes, they can be busy and anonymous, but the people can also be kind and generous. Actually, lol, our absolutely *worst* experience of humanity was the year dh and I spent in a particular small town. It was *horrible*. (And I have no delusions that "most" small towns are like that one. It was simply awful on its own.)

I was simply pointing out some things about the town that we never would have expected.

[Lorna in the boonies]

When we first moved to our last town, we went to the grocery store, loaded up the cart, and tried to pay with our credit card. They weren't set up to accept credit cards. We hadn't gotten our new checks yet and didn't have any cash with us (it was *the day* we moved there). I was apologizing and making a move to put all the groceries back up when the cashier told me to just take the groceries and come back and pay when our checks came in. So I did! Dh went back the next week to pay for them and they were like, "Well, word gets around fast. We knew you were the new preacher and knew you'd be good for it!"

We didn't lock our doors the entire 12 years we lived there. We would even go to visit dh's family in North Carolina and leave our front door (in West TX) unlocked.

If we weren't home, the UPS man would leave our packages on the coffee table.

We moved there from a not-very-safe part of Baton Rouge, so it was a big change. When we first went to try out for that church, we stayed in the parsonage. They told us that the front door was broken and wouldn't lock, but not to worry about it. Dh and I took every metal folding chair we could find and leaned it against the front door, figuring that if anyone opened it, the crashing would wake us up. Nothing happened, of course.

My mother used to get on my case for the fact that my car keys lived in the ignition. When we moved here (an hour north, but a far more crime-ridden area), I found that leaving my keys in the ignition was a very hard habit to break. I wish I'd never started doing that when we were in the small town, because now I still occasionally do it, and it's a pretty stupid thing to do in our new neighborhood!

I absolutely loved living in a small town!

[Staci in MO]

I worked in the local drug store on Saturdays. One day a lady from out of town came in and tried to pay for something with a credit card. It may sound silly, but I had never had anyone try to pay with a credit card (this little drug store certainly didn't take them). My parents had credit cards that they used to reserve hotel rooms and to shop out of town, but nobody used credit cards in town. (This was twenty years ago.)

Anyway, I was flabbergasted. And I was 17, so forgive me. I blinked at her and said, "We don't take credit cards. At least I don't think we do. Nobody's ever told me if we did."

The lady was (quite understandably) irritated. She left in a huff. I still feel badly that I was such a clueless clerk, but I would have been less surprised if she would have offered to pay for her things with a chicken.

[Staci in MO]

Then they would hang the clothes in the back closet.

When I was in college, one of my friends from St. Louis was visiting. The dry cleaner walked in while we were fixing supper. We looked up, said hello, and went back to what we were doing. When he left my friend asked who it was. When we told her it was the dry cleaner she almost fell over.:001_smile:

[Brigitte]

I still feel badly that I was such a clueless clerk, but I would have been less surprised if she would have offered to pay for her things with a chicken.

:lol: The way you put that made me lol!

My brother is a doctor on a smaller island in the Bahamas. He regularly gets paid with lobster, fish, produce, etc.

[Karen sn]

:lol: The way you put that made me lol!

My brother is a doctor on a smaller island in the Bahamas. He regularly gets paid with lobster, fish, produce, etc.

Would this be Grand Cay in the Abacos?

[Mom2legomaniacs]

I love these stories. When you are a kid, sometimes it is not so lovely when you live in a town where everybody knows when you've stubbed your toe. But it is really nice to have that kind of comfortableness with a community, isn't it. We live in smaller town, but not peanut sized. There some smaller town places and experiences that I have come to love. Anyway, this is a nice thread!

[Ottakee]

The librarian offers to bring your books that just came in through the inter-library loan to church for you to save you the drive to the library.

You can drop 10dd off at the doctor's office for them to "babysit" while you take 11dd to ER at the Children's hospital 45 minutes away. They watched dd until dh could get there to pick her up.

We leave the keys in the cars almost all of the time. The house is locked at times but most often open.

[Karin]

:lol: The way you put that made me lol!

My brother is a doctor on a smaller island in the Bahamas. He regularly gets paid with lobster, fish, produce, etc.

Back before BC had provincial medical insurance my dad had one patient who would pay him with hand woven baskets. Over the years she had a couple of different favourite MDs, and my parents and friends of theirs ended up with beautiful collections. She'd come in with a basket and ask how much she owed. Whatever that amount was, she sold the basket for $10 more (back then $10 was worth something).

And it wasn't a small town. It was a village with less than 500 people. Everybody knew everybody and everything you did, whether or not you'd actually done it! But no mailmen coming in the house because we had RR and you picked them up at the post office.

[Karen sn]

When I lived in Homer, Alaska I learned what safe feels like.
We lived in one house and were never given a key. Never even thought to ask for one. Was out one day talking about "what if bears...." and realized I didn't know if I even had a lock on the door should they ever get nosey!

Truck key always in the ignition.

Once when I was really broke the health food store gave me credit - as did the local coffee shop! I needed the coffee more because that was the local hang out spot and friends helped each other through long and depressing winters.

The little store out of town would rent movies - you just signed your name on a piece of a paper with your phone# and title of movie....no one ever asked to see an ID.

I never worried that my kid would get nabbed or my dog stolen for a fighting ring. I learned to trust others and being trusted myself even as the newbie was wonderful. WOW.....I love Homer, Alaska. My home away from home.
----Karen in a small Florida town where I grew up - but not as safe as Alaska.