Moved to a Small Town

Moved to a Small Town - I need to give you a little background first. When becoming disabled I moved to Altha Florida from Metro Atlanta a 17 county metropolis with a population of near 7 million. At one point in time 10,000 people moved into metro Atlanta every week. When young population around 550,000.

Altha population from 2003 was near 600. It is hard to find facts on a city this size. I heard the population has grown to near 2000. Also hearing that years ago a sign hung on the big oak tree. A tree now part of the front lawn of the school which is near 100 years old. The sign red "Nigger don't let the sun set on you in Altha" And showed a hanged black man.

Altha lies between the Chipola and Apalachicola Rivers on the Red Mesa; land where the LongHair Clan Tribal grounds are located. Other tribes of Florida are Pensacola, Timucua, Seminole, Calusa, Tekesta, and Misccosukee

We talked about a business to invest in Altha for us, my partner and I to have an income.We Decided to open a game room for the kids and bought a building located on main street across from a county school. Altha School has about 1000 students providing a customer base for our game room. The game room proved to be a little more than expected. Eventually with a restaurant it was more than we could handle and did not perform as expected financially only taking in near $1500 monthly. Finally closing the door in September 2004. Since then we have been involved in numerous adventures.

The small town life is not as expected either but not unlike a movie scene. When first buying and moving into our building, the Altha policeman and the town mayor came for visit. We were told we thought that we didn't want to start a business here. And thought we were being warned of life in Altha. It was not long before realizing that we were outsiders and treated like a red headed step child. Some folks are not as pregidious and came or let their children come and play.

To this day we have a fight keeping our parking for our customers, friends or family. People act like the school owns this property filling the parking lot every day when school lets out. I tried for a long time to put up with it but when I was gone and returned at school's end, I myself had no place to park. So I did what had to be done, I put up two no parking signs one on each end of the building and informed authorities that I wanted no parking enforced. I never would thought our property rights would be ignored in this town but other problems had to also be overcome. Rumors abound and kept folks from local churches from visiting. With any luck we will be selling the building and moving back to Atlanta area. With great fishing opportunities and a small town life as I was from originally Altha seemed like a good spot to relocate in my retirement years. Living in Altha witha good friend Brian McCreary who moved here from Atlanta upon becoming disabled also.

Not like Mayberry, I guess we are just dissapointed with Altha. Blountstown the county seat has many more people to blend with, or maybe Marianna another larger town near by. But after this small town I just don't have the heart to stay anywhere near here.