I live in a REALLY small town.

In My Humble Opinion
1

I spent most of my growing-up years (age 8-18) in Petaluma, California, pop. 56,000, so I thought I knew something about living in a small town. Hahaha. For now fate has brought me to Pavel Banya, Bulgaria, pop. 3,000. I teach English at the school here.

This is life in a really, really small town: one of my 7th graders lives in the house across the street from me. One of my coworkers lives in the house next to her. Another student (not one of mine) lives next door to me. I won’t say it’s impossible to go out and run errands without running into one of my students, but I can’t remember the last time it happened.

Yesterday, I left school, where I promptly ran into one of my colleagues. We walked a few blocks together. Then I went to the post office, which is run by the mother of two of my students. We chatted about her kids’ progress in school. While I was there, another of my colleagues came in to mail something. I left the post office, where I was hailed by another acquaintance. We chatted for a moment. Then I went to the grocery store, where I was helped by the husband of yet another of my colleagues.

Sometimes this is nice, like when the lady at the bus station shows me pictures of her grandson in Chicago. Sometimes it makes me crazy, especially when I decide maybe my students in the grocery store shouldn’t see me buying a package of cookies, a bag of chips, and a bottle of wine all at once. Darned kids, not letting me eat junk food in anonymity, dammit!

2

My hometown has claimed 30000 people since we moved there (35 years ago), but it used to be more like 26K ;), now it’s around 32K. But still, partly because of the local mentality and partly because we have the accent used in Spanish movies to indicate “bumpkin from a village”, we think it’s a village.

When I was in college, several of my friends who went to another one kept telling me there was a guy in their class I had to know: he was my age and from my town. I kept telling them, I don’t know any guys from back home who study there. He kept telling them, I don’t know any girls from back home who study where you say.
I went to the thesis defense of one of my friends and at one point turned around to find myself looking directly at a quite special pendant. It’s a silhouette of Navarra, with a diamond which in this case happened to be on my town. So I looked up and said “hi, I’m guessing you’re the guy from Backhome.”

Well, he was. But after half an hour, he put our situation very concisely:
“I’m from Lourdes; you’re from downtown. I went to the Lourdes public school; you went to the Nuns in old town. I went to the public High School; you went to the Jesuits. I swam at the Frontón; you went to Arenas. I partied in Tutú; you in Cocorico… damnit, it isn’t just the two Spains like the poem says*, we just found out the two Backhomes!”
Friends of my mother’s who are from nearby (smaller) places find it terribly funny when Backhomers are offended by the notion of someone they can’t “place.” “What do you mean, he’s from here? But from here forever? Born here? Then how come I don’t know him? His parents from here? Well, even if his mother was from Anotherplace, I still should know him, and I don’t! Are you sure the information you’re giving me is correct?”
I spent 12 years away from Backhome for practical purposes, between leaving for college and going back to help care for Dad. Two more years of leaving the house very little. Then I joined a local factory and enjoyed myself a lot driving the guys crazy by the very simple procedure of not giving them exhaustive data (I didn’t list every single nickname for each of my brothers, for example). They were climbing the walls because they believed me when I said I’d lived there since I was 4… but they could not place me. Then one day, as I was walking through the warehouse area with a very-local coworker, the Maintenance Manager stopped me to give me his condolences for Dad’s death.

Take a vulture. Now take a shark. Make a hybrid that’s got the least-charming characteristics of both. Get the hybrid hungry, PMS-y and fired from the job of its dreams, and then you’ll have an idea of the look in my co-worker’s eyes as he watched the Maintenance Manager walk away… it was a look that said “we are going to Have A Talk, you and I!”

The coworker excused himself upon returning to the lab. Officially, he took a really long time to powder his nose, although I must say it’s curious that the door through which he returned is in no way near the bathrooms. He gave me an appraising look, didn’t say anything and went back to work.

Over the next few days, a couple of the eldest coworkers mentioned having brothers or cousins who’d worked with my father. And one guy who’s Middlebro’s age said “nowwaitaminute… you won’t be the X’s sister, the roleplayer?” “Actually and since they’re younger, it’s technically them who are my brothers. I was here first.” With an embarrased laugh, “haha, ah, I don’t know if you’ll remember me…” “A guy whose lastname is Barn and who kicks like a mule? Honey, I’ll be compleeeeeeetely senile before I forget you. It certainly is nice to see that you don’t feel the need to kick people while being dragged back to your house, any more.” The other guys were laughing soooooo hard.

  • Antonio Machado I think:
    Españolito que vienes
    al mundo, te guarde Dios,
    que una de las dos Españas
    ha de helarte el corazón.

Li’l Spaniard, as you come
into the world, may God help you,
for one of the two Spains
is bound to freeze your heart.

3

Graduating class of 9 from eighth grade. Public school.

There was a hub village near where I grew up with about 10,000 people, supermarket, movie theater, and such. There were a couple other villages nearby that were too small to have any of the cool stuff, so the one central town had a lot more goodies than really necessary given the official population. Everyone was just used to having to drive a half hour to town for anything more than a gallon of milk and some toilet paper.

So we didn’t tend to all know each other. Most of the people in the area were relatively hermitous, and while you might get a row of houses all together (like 3 to 5), you’d then have a pretty good gap with just pine trees and deer.

4

I know what you mean.

Although my town has grown to about 12,000 folks, there’s a lot of bumping into people who know who you are.

I teach in a local school, so that means local pupils and their families know me by sight at least.

Walking down the street on a weekend usually gets at least one “Hello, Sir!”
Eating in a restaurant often involves waving at somebody.
Getting service at shops, doctors, opticians, banks means a greeting of “How are you today Mr. Glee?”

Apparently there’s a brothel in town :eek: , so I avoid even using that street. You never know…

5

Like ** glee** I also live in a small place, a village of just over 10,000 souls at the 2001 census.

Like him it’s hard not to meet someone you know by sight when out and about altho’ nobody calls me sir. Usually it’s “hello you grouchy old bugger, still alive I see”

As far as I’m aware we haven’t got a brothel as yet, give it time :smiley:

6

The town I grew up in was 300 people. The school was bigger because they bussed us.

The first peice of advice my mother got moving there - don’t gossip, everyone is related to everyone else.

7

About 20,000 in my town. Not that small but small enough that you know a lot of the people. Little things like my ex-girlfriend from school marrying my sister’s ex-boyfriend, that type of thing :slight_smile:
My current girlfriend comes from a really small village, population 1,029 according to Wikipedia. Whenever we visit there it seems like everybody we see knows her. Somehow this village of 1,029 still manages to support three pubs.

8

Heh. Y’know what? I was BORN in Petaluma—though I grew up, part way, in Cotati—now I live in a town with a population of 1014. (It’s so small, there’s only one gay bar on Main street.)

9

56,000 isn’t even a small town, it’s a small city.

My wife grew up in Brighton, ON, population 5,000. That’s a small town, but it’s not even a REALLY small town.

10

My home town is Logansport, Louisiana population 1,300. It isn’t a suburb of anything or an artificial enclave. It is just tiny. My high school class was 39 people and the district spanned 30 miles and is one of the few public school districts that includes two states (Louisiana and Texas) because it is too underpopulated to create a reasonable district to accomodate student travel time. True story: I left at age 18 to go to college and did not return to visit for 13 years. I got up the courage to visit again 2 years ago. I walked into stores, the local pharmacy, etc. and people just talked to me like I never left without any provocation from me (e.g. “Hi, your daddy was in here last week. Can you just tell him that I would like to come? Would you like to put this on his account or just pay” :confused: Everything looked almost exactly the same as well.

Oddly enough, there are now at least two Dopers from the same general area that know (of) Logansport and I know similar towns in the same general area. That very rarely happens anywhere.

11

Incidentally. I can’t consider anything above 6000 to be a small town. My current town of Holliston has 13,000 people and it certainly has small town elements but, after living in places of several sizes, 13,000 is way different than places with 10% or even 1% of that size.

12

Grew up in a city of about 11,000. Went to University with 6,000 students.
For a while my permanent residence was a village of 715 (summer population much higher). Lived in a city of ~3,000 (county seat). Currently live in a city of ~5,000, but city of ~50,000 about 3 miles away.

The city of 3,000 had more that my current city of 5,000 beacsue 1)it is the county seat and 2) there wasn’t the “big city” nearby.

Brian

13

I live in NYC (not a small town) but we have a place up by my family in a small village, pop. 2,266.

The funny thing is that I still have a NYC mindset, and am amazed every time I run into someone. If I see you at the grocery store, and later that day at the post office, I am bowled over and comment on it excessively, most likely making you think I am the village idiot.

(Kyla has already heard this story, but) a while back we had some problem with the water bill, so I called with an assertive “I’m going to get this resolved RIGHT NOW” approach - “this is my account number, and this is the address, and I have documentation that the billing does not accurately reflect our contract, etc etc” - and the man who picked up the phone at the water company responded by saying cheerfully “Oh hi honey, how’s your mother doing?” I was completely flummoxed for a moment.

14

The town I grew up in (or near, rather) had 735 people. My high school graduating class had 28 people in it, and we were one of the largest classes to have graduated there. My sister worked at the school and the principal was good friends with my parents so I didn’t get away with anything. After I got married we moved to the “big city” 12 miles away and now I live in a town of 2,300. :slight_smile:
I personally like small-town living. I like knowing who my neighbors are. The gossip does get annoying at times.

15

:stuck_out_tongue: :stuck_out_tongue:

16

Heh. The closest town to me is Alma Colorado. If you do a google search, the first hit is ‘Alma Colorado Ghost town’

Now THAT’S a small town. (About 200 people actually)

17

Okay, yeah, Cotati is really small. But cute. And it has the accordion festival! Which I’ve never been to, but strikes me as amusing.

Why on earth did I post this in IMHO? Any passing mods feel like moving this over to MPSIMS, which is where I thought I put it in the first place?

Incidentally, I just took myself out to a meal at a cafe (perfect weather for sitting around at cafes and being lazy). One of my 2nd graders passed me and said “zdravei, gazpozho!” (“hello, miss!”…my 2nd graders aren’t quite sophisticated enough to greet me in English), and then while walking the ten feet or so to the internet club, three more students stopped me to tell me they liked my hat.

18

If you don’t mind me asking, where are you from (or what part of the state if you don’t want to get that specific).

I grew up in Centerville, Minnesota - which nowadays is just a suburb a 30 minute drive from downtown St. Paul, filled with big surburban houses. The “natives” and their old Chevy pickups are now completely outnumbered by the SUV driving yuppies and its no longer an even chance you’ll be sitting next to a cousin in first grade (and an only slightly lower chance you’d end up marrying one). When we moved there in the 1970s it was five miles to the nearest place that sold milk.

19

I do have to agree that some of the posters posting in here don’t know from small. I grew up in a small town of 2,000 people in western Wisconsin (was 2047 in 1980, then 2003 in 1990, now I believe it’s down to 1983, but ironically feels larger as the outskirts are growing, I think). 10,000 people does not a small town make.

True story: I met a girl who was all, “I’m from a small town you’ve never heard of in Virginia.” Someone asked her how many people lived there, to which she replied, “Oh, only 200,000.” Naturally, we then asked her what “town” it was that we’d never heard of - Norfolk. What?! Lady, there’s no way Norfolk classifies as a small town. She was a bit surprised to learn that people grow up in towns 100x smaller than her own.

20

I guess it’s not the smallest mentioned here. But my hometown had pop: 898. My graduatiing class, which was the biggest in the school’s history at the time, was 32. I think my brother graduated with 14.

I’m not a big fan of small town living. Too much gossip and cliqueiness. And you have to drive about 30 miles to get anything other than groceries.

I now live in a town of about 70,000.