Ten More Signs You Were Raised in a Small Town

In my last article, I covered everything from giving directions to keg parties. Here are some more amusing truths about growing up in a small town.

You couldn't help but date a friend's ex-boyfriend/girlfriend.
Really, there aren't too many people in the dating pool to pick from in a small town. My graduating class had 17 people in it, the class before us had nine, and the class behind us had 23 (they were the largest class in the school). Unless you branched out to neighboring towns, you had no choice but to date your best friend's ex. However, neighboring towns had their disadvantages too...

The town next to you was considered 'trashy' or 'snooty,' but was actually just like your town.
I mentioned it in my previous article. My hometown and the next town over were involved in a huge feud. No one knows for certain how it happened. The feud was alive and well when my dad was in high school in the late 1940s - early 1950s. My sister and I were actually forbidden from dating guys from the neighboring town. Many jokes were made about how in-breeding was the only way to procreate in our small town, since everyone was related, somehow.

The people in the 'big city' dressed funny, and then you picked up the trend two years later.
Every single trend that hit America hit my small hometown two years later. The ratted bangs of the 80s were popular when I was in junior high, in the early 1990s. Tight-rolled jeans, where you folded the extra material flat against your leg before rolling them up, causing the remaining part of your pants to appear ballooned out like harem pants, were popular long after the rest of the world was discovering boot-cut jeans. The same thing happened with Roller-blading, CDs, movies and radio songs. Until the rest of the world had tired of the trend, we were reluctant to pick it up.

You saw at least one friend a week driving a tractor through town or one of your friends driving a grain truck to school occasionally.
This is slightly exaggerated. In the 1990s, we really didn't see too many kids driving grain trucks or tractors to school. However, the vehicles we drove were true beaters. Rusted-out old pickup trucks, huge Ford Crown Vics, even an old Chevy Malibu or two could be seen in our school parking lot, for those of us lucky enough to be able to drive to school. Most of us rode the bus whether we had our licenses or not, because it was cheaper. What parent would pay $1.00 per gallon of gas to send their child to school in their own vehicle when the bus was free?

Directions were given using the only stop light as a reference.
We didn't have a stop light in my home town. The best we could offer was one four-way stop. Everyone knew where everyone else was going, so there was no need for fancy things like stop lights or stop signs, or blinkers for that matter. We did have what we called 'the flashing yellow light' that was miles out of town and was used for giving directions to the next town over. "Go out to the highway that runs by the liquor store and the fair grounds. When you pass Cenex, turn left and go until you get to the flashing yellow light. Then turn left again."

When you decided to walk somewhere for exercise, five people would pull over and ask if you wanted a ride.
Since I lived on a farm seven miles from town, it wasn't often we would see someone walking along the old highway without needing assistance. I remember riding with my father when he made me roll down my window to ask a gal if she needed help. He asked, "Are you walking on purpose or do you need a ride?" Never mind that she had weights in her hands and a Walkman strapped to her belt, folks still had to ask.

Your teachers called you by your older siblings' names.
My older siblings are much older than me, by 20-plus years. They only attended my school a couple years before moving away. Still, I had teachers who called me by my older sister's name, and I know my younger sister had the same problem.

Your teachers remembered when they taught your parents.
My father was 45 when I was born. He attended school in a one-room schoolhouse until reaching high school. Yet my first grade teacher, Miss Monk, said that she remembered when her sister taught my father in that one-room schoolhouse.

You could charge at any local store or write checks without any ID.
I had my first checking account before I had a drivers license for identification. We simply didn't need it. Any kid could come into my parents' restaurant and charge their lunch ~ just sign your name on the ticket and you were good to go. Everyone knew who everyone else was. There was no need to ask for ID for a person you knew since birth.

There was no McDonald's, and the nearest mall was over an hour away.
You know you live in a small town (especially in North Dakota) when you measure distance in hours instead of miles. The closest thing we had to a McDonald's was our family restaurant, where we served soft-serve ice cream and burgers with fries. Not only was the nearest mall an hour-and-a-half away, the nearest K-Mart was too. There was absolutely no where in our town to buy essentials like shoes or clothing. We traveled 75 miles to buy a bra. Of course, we didn't just buy a bra. We made a day out of it. We got dressed up, put on makeup, wore our best shoes, curled our hair to perfection before heading out to the big city. We would leave at 9 in the morning and come home in the dark.

Small towns are like a country unto themselves. There are different rules, different hardships, different joys, that set us apart. I wouldn't have traded my years in a small town for anything.