Ten Signs You Were Raised in a Small Town

I got an email today about living in a small town, and it brought back so many wonderful childhood memories. There is no other experience like growing up in a small town. To those of you who had the opportunity to grow up in a small town, I know you will be smiling and nodding along as you read. To those who grew up in the city, please understand that although this is amusing, it's also true.

You can name everyone you graduated with.
I graduated in 1996 in a class of 17, and not only can I name all my classmates by first and last name, I know most of the females' married names as well! Let's see. There was Brian, Nathan, Jason, John, Daren, Blake, Jeremy, Jared, Jesse, Scott, Nancy, Brenna, Heather, Sarah, Kristi, Melinda, and me. We had 200 in our school (that's kindergarten through 12th grade), and I was in the last graduating class that had the Oriole as a mascot before the school co-oped with a neighboring school.

You know what 4-H means.
I was involved in 4-H for as long as I remember. I recall doing speech and demonstration projects on topics ranging from setting a proper dinner table to making ceramic pig trivets. I won grand champion at the local fair for those stinking trivets (and yes, they did stink because of the potpourri sachets tucked inside them) and went on to the State Fair to win second. The State Fair was a huge deal too. The only time I ever went as a child was when I 'earned' my way there by winning 4-H ribbons. Oh, and the four H's stand for Home, Health, Heart and Head.

You went to parties at a pasture, barn, gravel pit, or in the middle of a dirt road.
My first 'kegger' was in the middle of a pasture. The party spot was always in the middle of nowhere, and oftentimes it was held in a barn or a quonset. There was usually a bonfire involved, although we had to make sure it wasn't seen from the road.

You used to 'drag' Main Friday and Saturday nights.
Okay, not only did we drive around our hometown and cruise Main Street, but the kids with the cool parents got to go to the neighboring town of Harvey to 'drag' Main. I begged and pleaded with my folks to let me take the car to go 'driving around', but they made me stay in town only. This was back in the day when gasoline was at about $1.00 per gallon.

Side note: In North Dakota, kids get their drivers licenses at age 14. Originally it was so they could help their parents drive grain truck!

Most people went by a nickname.
This is absolutely true, for the guys. Thinking back, some of the nicknames I remember from my childhood included Nugget, Muffin, Beef, Shim, Moose, and Dupe. There was another girl in my class who shared my name, so I got called by my first name and last initial so often that I thought my middle name was Kay.

You scheduled parties around the schedules of different police officers, because you knew which ones would bust you and which ones wouldn't.
Since we only had a sheriff, a deputy sheriff, and one city cop, it wasn't hard to figure out who was working which weekend. We knew where all the law enforcement lived, so we could drive past to see if the squad car was parked in the front of his house or not. Partying on the weekends the sheriff worked was a guaranteed 'minor', or 'minor in possession of alcohol' for you big-city types.

You never got away with anything because everyone knew your parents didn't allow that sort of behavior.
The thing about living in a small town is that everyone knows everything about you. The whole town knew if you were grounded, and if you skipped school, you couldn't go anywhere because someone would spot you and call the school. We didn't have truancy officers because the whole town acted as truancy officers!

When you could find somebody old enough and brave enough to buy you cigarettes, you had to go out into the country and drive on back roads to smoke them.
My girlfriends Heather, Brenda, Jennifer and I used to drive the gravel roads with all the windows rolled down to avoid smelling like smoke. If the weather was nice, we used to hang out by the Virgin Mary statue in the Catholic part of the cemetery to smoke. We were known to light up and giggle hysterically while singing 'Puff the Magic Dragon'. Lame, I know, but what did we know? We were 14!

It was cool to date somebody from the neighboring town.
My sister and I were actually forbidden from dating boys from the neighboring town because of a long-standing feud between the schools. No one knew how or when the feud began, but it was old when my dad was in high school, and he graduated in 1951. Yes, my father attended the same school I did. But I digress. All the popular girls had Harvey boys as prom dates.

You didn't give directions by street names but rather by references.
I didn't know any of the street names in my home town. Main Street was actually named Main Avenue, but no one knew that. Our town was divided into four sections: over by the park, next to the school, up by Main street, and near the Courthouse. Directions usually begin with the question, "Okay, do you know where the Widigers live?" or "Remember that building that burned down a while back?"

I hope you enjoyed a glimpse into the life of a child growing up in a small town. These are just a few examples ~ more to come!