Small Town Descriptions Required for Research

I live in a rural area

Near a small town in PA. The population is about 12,000, if which 7,500 are university students. A few miles outside of town is an interstate exit with a truckstop and a convienence store. All the fire departments nearby are volunteer, like the rescue squad. They hold monthly "chicken and waffle" dinners to raise funds.

The main st in town is aptly named: "Main St." Included on Main St. is an old theater, several banks, an intersection with a water fountain and a civil war monument. There's also a farmers market area on Tuesdays, I believe.

Activity has been brisk in town lately, what with the installation of new traffic lights at East St. and Fifth st. (Yes, there's a West St. also, as well as a 12 1/2 st.) Other construction included the rebuilding of a railroad crossing at a major intersection.

Another major thoroughfare, Market St. leads down to the river near the park. (yes, Market st. had a shopping center on it). The park on the river has picnic pavilions, (1st come, 1st serve), tennis courts, baseball field, ponds, music stage for summer concerts, and a kids playground. Included by the river portion of the park are opportunistic geese and ducks who never turn down a handout.

The newspaper publishes daily, all the news that's fit to print. Today's headline is not the deficit or Iraq, but a commentary on new construction at the residence of the Univ. president. Page three leads off with car carsh between a buick and a mazda. Nice pic of the scene. National and international news are one 1/2 page in the first section. There is a charming section where readers call in with their opinions on various topics. One reader sent in a poem:

In debt? Not enough yet.
Pennsylvania's Gov. Rendell
Thinks that bond issues are swell
Let's get further in debt.
We're not deep enough yet.
Restrained spending's his version of Hell.

And you though Cali had issues?

On page 27 are listed family reunions, various anniversaries, and who's on Deans Lists.

One of the traditional industries in this area, textile/clothing manf. has declined with NAFTA. There are some other manufacturing industries here. The downtown has a few vacant store fronts. One blow was when the liquor store relocated from downtown to a nearby highway.

There ya go Snippetsville!

Re: Svenska must be ill

MathGirl said:

Dear Svenska,
Are you okay, dear? Usually, confusing Sweden and that other "S" country gets a rise out of you second only to when you're called "Sven."
Concerned,
MG

Click to expand...

Well, I WAS going to say something sarcastic about that, bu then I thought about it, and remembered reading about Swedish history. Way, way back, we did have milk maids, who walked around the mountains to let the cows graze. And even though they didn't yodel all that much, in the far, far north we have the Laplanders, who sing a special kind of "jojk", which is the Scandinavian version of American Indian Folksong. So, I figured, in a way, in a very, very, VERY far-fetched way, your protest made sense.

I blame it on the heat. It's giving me a migraine.

Svenskaflicka All small town experiences are welcome. Please add yours. There may just be something that piques an author's interest.

question How far, very generally speaking, are small towns from 'interstate' roads?


WH Awesome answers! Thanks for them.


One thing that is blatantly obvious to me, if no one else, is that small towns seem to have much more going for them than I ever expected. It's not until listing places/events/people that I actually realised so much goes on. I never gave a thought to all the clubs etc... Lions, Scouts, Girl Guides, etc... Those clubs are inherent within small towns.

Sorry for not doing the first question of the thread but my whole anonimity thing stopped me but let me answer some of the stuff from my little town of about 14000 (very spread out BTW)

1. Do all towns in the USA have hydro electric power?

Mine had coal. yep coal. trains ran in to the untility building and it generated power. Then the train went to the next town and so on down the line dropping off coal everywhere

2. Are there volunteer firemen in all small towns?
Mine had a real fire department. From my 4th of July parade experiences, where I grew up it was only the really dinky (less han 2K) towns that had volunteer


3. Drive-In. This is an outside movie theatre, right? Would they be common in most small towns?
We had a drive in but it closed when I wasw little. They hold old car shows there now, it was replaced by a multiplex (read 3 screens) in the 'mall'


4. Do different church groups/religions share church buildings?

No, never. I actually went to church one town over and there were 3 chirches for 3 varieties of a religion that now that I'm near washington DC are completely combined here. small towns are less likely to combine I think. Better to be in some 100 yo building than that

5. What is the route of drinking water prior to turning on the kitchen tap? (Here in NZ we have a mixture of rain water stored in tanks on our properties and large water catchment areas where the water is then pumped into houses - city water)

City water from underground wells. Even in very small <3000 cities. Water is stored in a water town, which is often painted in town spirit stuff. If you're in the country then you have a small well/septic feild for fresh water and waste.

6. What effect has the 'internet' had on the small town you know of.

I'd tell you if it was there. Sure you can get AOL on a dial up but there isn't anything faster than 56K within an hour of my home town. The phone company would need to update the switches and evidently they won't be doing it for another 10 years

1. Do all towns in the USA have hydro electric power?
NO. Few towns have their own electric generating facilities. The majority get their power from coal or gas powered steam generators.

2. Are there volunteer firemen in all small towns?
NO. For very small villages, with population in the low hundreds, it may not be cost effective. Town with a population above about 10K-15K will have a f/t department. Those in-between have volunteers.

3. Drive-In. This is an outside movie theatre, right? Would they be common in most small towns?
NOT ANY MORE. The number of outdoor drive-ins has been declining rapidly in the States since the early 70's (air conditioning and daylight savings time).

4. Do different church groups/religions share church buildings?
VERY SELDOM

5. What is the route of drinking water prior to turning on the kitchen tap? (Here in NZ we have a mixture of rain water stored in tanks on our properties and large water catchment areas where the water is then pumped into houses - city water)
IT VARIES However, most small town water systems rely on either wells or reservoirs.

6. What effect has the 'internet' had on the small town you know of. LITTLE

Hope that helps.

RF

I mentioned elsewhere my original hometown, had a population of 750 people, both times I lived there, from birth to six years, and again from eighteen until I was thirty.

It had a substantial Elementary School of about 300. That’s all the elementary kids in my town and a ten-mile radius of farms, crossroad settlements, and others. There was no high school (very early fifties) but one was erected when the baby boom caught up with High Schools. It, however, was centred in another town, with our town's teens being bussed there.

We didn't have a doctor, until the late 80's. A town seven miles away had a doctor, whose office eventually grew into a clinic. Anything more than basic emergency treatment was transferred to the ‘Big City,’ which had two hospitals, a General Hospital, and a Private Catholic Hospital, supervised by Nuns.

The nearest (Junior B Hockey Team) was in that big city. Although our town did have a town team, it had to go out of town to practice, as we had no rink - except for an outdoor rink erected in the schoolyard during winter.

We had a Park/Ball Diamond/ Band Shell. The park was used on Victoria's Day for fireworks, strawberry festivals, family reunions, Thanksgiving celebrations. The ball park was used by kids during the day, and was the site of titanic inter-town rivalries at night.

There was a town brass band. As a matter of fact, it had national, and eventually international success, because it was the only small (12 players approx.) marching clown band. They were both good musicians - the few of them - and had worked up a goodly number of hilarious routines to enact while marching. Anytime a parade was scheduled, our town’s Marching Clown Band was invited.

I can remember some forgotten civic event that brought a tumbling act (mostly trampoline) to entertain the town, at the Band Shell.

There were three Protestant Churches in our town, although one later gave up the ghost and became a community centre. Three miles away at a major crossroads community leading from the big city, was a huge Catholic Church of local renown. There was at least one synagogue in the big city, but until these last ten years, no specially built, full time mosques, within the county.

All these religious buildings drew parishioners from the surrounding farms and crossroad communities for their special brand of piety.

Our town’s major business was a creamery, which specialized in butter of local note. Our nearest rival was an equal sized town, only twenty miles away, that was the site of a cheese manufactoring company of even GREATER renown, but their best-known specialty was a ripe Limburger cheese. You can imagine the jokes.

We had one garage with gas pumps, a chick hatchery, a general store which later, during the seventies, became a sort of Hippie Bazaar and Yuppie nostalgia emporium.

We had no lake, but there was a dam that covered nine acres, just big enough for boating, fishing and cottages. The dam had originally powered a long-defunct grist mill, and when I knew it, was maintained for its usefulness in flood control.

There was a post office off to the side of a small grocery store, a freezer, where everybody kept bulk purchases of meat: quarters of beef, halves of a pig, two dozen chickens, etc. since originally, few had refrigerators (early 50's). Later, it still proved useful to partner with another on an animal, take it to a custom butcher, have the animal cut up and frozen in whatever kind of cuts could be got out of your half, and kept in town, frozen. It helped lower the grocery bill.

There was one hotel. It did rent rooms, but only to a few individuals who seemed to live there permanently. For the rest, the hotel had a bar, offered some C&W entertainment on weekends, and a place to which the men could retire when home life became too thick underfoot.

From the fifties, forward, every house in town had electricity. The phones, like most rural phones were party lines. You not only had to hear the ringing, but recognize you particular pattern of rings. Naturally, everyone knew your code, too. It was not unheard of, that someone might listen in on your conversation to get the jump on the other gossips. Obviously, there was no phone sex going on.

Finally, almost every male resident, more than twenty year and less than sixty was a member of our town’s Volunteer Fire Department. The women were in the Auxiliary, and ran small events to raise money toward the purchase of necessary equipment. The volunteer’s job was immediate response, until the trucks could get out from the big city. It was their motto - voiced only by detractors - that they never lost a foundation.

For our purposes, what I remember of my hometown is that of a small town in the midst of a Canadian farming region. Snippettsville is a small American town amongst a wilderness/recreational area.

But, what I especially remember were the inter-town rivalries in sports, as well as business, even social events. The Townies, against the Cottagers (mostly because, being outside the town limits, their taxes went to the Township) but also because they had better summer cottages than we had homes.

I imagine that if we can remember enough of our various small town’s social dynamics, and infuse them into Snipettsville, we will be the richer, when trying to plot new stories.


Just a thot!

wildsweetone said:

How far, very generally speaking, are small towns from 'interstate' roads?

Click to expand...

There is no "generally speaking" when it comes to Interstates and small towns -- the interstates killed some towns and spawned others.

There are more interstates and turnpikes in the East than there are in the west, so small town in the east are closer to interstates than they are in the west.

In Oregon, for example, there are basically two interstate highways I-5 which runs north and south and I80 which runs east/west. I-5 runs along the valley between the Coast Range and the Cascade Range about 1/8 of the way from theWestern edge of the state. I-80 runs along the northern edge of the state, seldom more than about 10 miles from the border (the Columbia River) for most of it's run through the state.

According to my world atlas, NZ has an area of 103,515 Sq Miles, Oregon has an area of 97,076 Sq Miles; It is like if NZ only having one Motorway along the north edge of the country and one down the west side.

Nevada is even worse off, being 110,562 Sq Miles with NO north/south interstate at all. and only about 100 miles of Interstate in Southern Nevada (not counting bypasses and feeder roads inside LasVegas Proper.)

A place like Snippetville would probably be about 20 miles from an interstate or other freeway if it's in PA, but around 50 if it's West of the Mississipi River.

In general, Logging Towns, and small towns with "History" would be 40-60 miles from an Interstate althoughthey' might be closer to, if not on, a major US Highway which might or might not be a "divided highway" "Turnpike" or "Freeway" -- the equivalent of a limited access Motorway or the Autobahn in Europe.

Does Snippetsville have a movie theater or roller-skating rink? It's "Small Town America" so it obviously has a both a baseball diamond and a football field -- probably at the High School, but in a park if not. Does it have any other athletic fields -- a multi-purpose field where they play soccer, field hockey, lacrosse or something like that?

Lots of small towns

I grew up in Round Rock, wasat one time a stopping point for cattle drivers.... back during ranch wars and such, in my youth it had a population of a little less than 500, we had one paved road that ran through the main streatch of town... on the west side of town was where all the white folks lived on the east side well that's where all the poor folks lived an area called the flats, right under swede hill, which is were all the swedish immagrants lived. The street I grew up on was dirt and I can remember dust devils playing along the streatch... there was a small park if you followed it down a mile if you went east near the main road you ran past the post office and the city hall. the bank was in the north part of town, about 2 miles from the post office near the grocery store, there were actually two of these one in the north for white folks and one in the south for the hispanics the groceries were culturally oriented accordingly. Hrrmm..... I dunno what else to say about it I'm not much on describing small towns.... I was in the town of tamapats once and I think that town had a population of 60? one road and a grocery store, where we proceeded to drink all the soda and beer... and they had to go down to Aquismon to get more.... Hixilitla is a interesting small town too.... I'm also quite fond of Leukenbach and Terlingua and... Jesus Cruz... oh that was an interesting town too... 20 odd houses constructed of aluminum cans and shingle board. no roads just sorta goat paths.....

Hi all! I live in a small town of about 6100 people in the lovely Lakes Region of NH.

1. Do all towns in the USA have hydro electric power?
No, but such was not always the case.

2. Are there volunteer firemen in all small towns?
In a town my size, we have professional firefighters and EMT's on duty. Volunteer departments are in much smaller towns than mine.

3. Drive-In. This is an outside movie theatre, right? Would they be common in most small towns?

You have to go to the city for a movie of any sort.

4. Do different church groups/religions share church buildings?

I can remember once about twenty-five or so years ago the Baptist church burned down and they had services at the Catholic church while it was being rebuilt. And when they were building the new Catholic church after the old one got too small, I believe the Baptists reciprocated for some services.

5. What is the route of drinking water prior to turning on the kitchen tap? (Here in NZ we have a mixture of rain water stored in tanks on our properties and large water catchment areas where the water is then pumped into houses - city water)

In the village where I live it comes from the resevoir (sp?) but in outlying areas on the back roads it comes from private wells.

6. What effect has the 'internet' had on the small town you know of.

Probably the same as everywere else, I would imagine.

Hope that helps.

FG

Wonderful thread...

Hello,

I live in a small town in the Midwest. The population is 7,000 and the majority of that number is farmers. The town itself has several 1 - 4 block streets, with the main streets being two state routes which intersect in the center of the 'village', at one of the two traffic lights. There is one grocery store/gas station, a carry-out/gas station, a bank, three restaurants and two bars. Everything is closed by 9:00 except the bars and one restaurant; they close between 10 p.m. and 2:30 a.m., or whenever the employees get tired of being open. Other business includes a cookie factory (no, it does not smell yummy), a lumber yard, a furniture store and a Harley shop. There are two churches: Lutheran and Presbytarian. The elementary/high school is in one building; the middle school is in a smaller town a few miles away.

The village is located about 20 miles from a town of 50,000 occupants. Most of us will be seen making the morning commute there to work. We are also approximately 20 miles from an interstate. High corn makes driving very dangerous, as do deer. Even those who don't have full coverage on a vehicle get special coverage in case a deer is hit, since this very common. We have no mail service to our homes, and have to go to the post office and check the P.O. Box. If you get a package or too much mail, they slip a note in the box. They are only open to collect those items, however, during the typical working day (when we are all 20 miles away).


1. Do all towns in the USA have hydro electric power?

We have AEP. I don't think it is hydro electric, but it is expensive.

2. Are there volunteer firemen in all small towns?

We have a fire station. I assume it is manned 24/7, but am not sure...

3. Drive-In. This is an outside movie theatre, right? Would they be common in most small towns?

There is one in another small town about an hour from us, but it has become rare to see one that is still in operation.

4. Do different church groups/religions share church buildings?

Not where I live.

5. What is the route of drinking water prior to turning on the kitchen tap? (Here in NZ we have a mixture of rain water stored in tanks on our properties and large water catchment areas where the water is then pumped into houses - city water)

We have 'city water', but they have a lot of problems with it, and we are faced with discoloration and boil advisories.

6. What effect has the 'internet' had on the small town you know of.

When there is a school delay or snow day, all the kids in town get on it, and the rest of us cannot connect.

Wish I had more time to answer, but I hope this helps you...

Smiles,
Wantonica

Wantonica,

thanks for the 'Harley shop' mention. It's giving me ideas for more Snippettsville stories...

You say "The population is 7,000 and the majority of that number is farmers." Do I assume that the farmers live on their farms? If that is so, how many people actually live "in town", so to speak?

Alex

Alex,

Alex De Kok said:

You say "The population is 7,000 and the majority of that number is farmers." Do I assume that the farmers live on their farms? If that is so, how many people actually live "in town", so to speak?

Alex

Click to expand...

Yes, the farmers live on their farms. After pondering your question, I would estimate the population within town to be about 3,000.

If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask...

Happy day,
Wantonica

Wantonica Can you tell me please the average high and low temperature in your area?

favoritesgoddess said:

Hi all! I live in a small town of about 6100 people in the lovely Lakes Region of NH.
...

2. Are there volunteer firemen in all small towns?
In a town my size, we have professional firefighters and EMT's on duty. Volunteer departments are in much smaller towns than mine.
...

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This caught my eye, as a volunteer firefighter, so I did a little looking- you may be surprised at how large towns get before the "...breaking point between volunteer and career departments..."

It's 50,000. Thats a national figure, so it wont apply everywhere, but if S'ville wants to incorporate volunteer firefighting, it wouldn't be ruled out by the size.

The survey link is here, if anyone wants to see the rest of the stats, (age of stations, training, certification, etc)
http://www.mtas.utk.edu/KnowledgeBase.nsf/0/6f11ee6c1873ce7f85256cdb00514709/$FILE/A%20Snapshot%20of%20the%20United%20States%20Fire%20Service%202002.pdf

(The link is to a summary file, the full survey is on a gov. website, I didn't feel like downloading all of it.)

Sailor

wildsweetone said:

Wantonica Can you tell me please the average high and low temperature in your area?

Click to expand...

I'm not sure what Wantonica's answer, but from the Map discussion, Snippetsville's average highs and lows would closely match the Pacific Northwest:

Annual average Maximum Low: 0F
Annual average Maximum high: 102F
(note these temperatures would normally be one day events, two days in a row at best. There might be an exceptional heat or cold wave lasting a week or so, but they'd be VERY unusual and historic events.)

A typical Winter high would be about 25F with a low around 5F.
A typical Summer high would be 95F with a low of 75F

Typical Wintertime Humidity would run in the 35%-40% range.
Typical Summertime Humidity would run about 20%-25%.

Annual precipitation is measure in feet, and annual snowfall in town is measured in Inches. The average "snow line" is about 2,500 MSL elevation. (Snippetsville probably sits right at or near the average snow line and so doesn't accumulate large drifts that persist all winter.)

There are few severe storms altough spectacular Lightening displays aren't uncommon and there is generally one "Hurricane Class" storm every year around Columbus Day (October 12th) that sweeps in from the Gulf of Alaska. The Coast Range mountiains usually blunt the force of the "Columbus Day Storms" but can funnel high winds through narrow valleys to create local winds in excess of 100MPH.

Precipitation is generally from prolonged light, "soaking" rain rather than than "deluges" that dump a lot of precipitation in a short period. Heavy "deluges" aren't unknown, but are usually fairly short duration peaks in a rainfall rather than isolated rainstorms.

(The climate is much like England, or the Channel Coast regions of France, as far as highs, lows, and preciption levels and types -- for the European Authors.)

Edited to add that a quirk in the weather patterns in central western Oregon makes a White Easter more common that a White Christmas.

A typical Christmas from my childhood was balmy and dry for the week centered on Christmas with daytime highs around 45F-50F and Lows around Freezing. A typical Easter memory is hunting for Eggs in snow ranging from a light dusting that melts away before noon, to one or two inches that persists a day or two.

Temps...

You are looking at the Pacific Northwest; I am in the Midwest. The way things have been going, there is no way to give an average. It is the end of July today, and I had to wear a sweater for half the day.

Happy evening,
Wantonica

I knew I shouldn't have asked about temp until i opened the Setting Discussion.

Thank you both for your answers. I will be opening the setting discussion thread soon.

sailorm thanks for your input on firefighters.

I don't know if I can do my home town justice, but I can surely do as well as some of these other homies have.

I grew up in a small town in northern Missouri. It was so small...

Well, back to the point. It had about 1,000 to 2,000 people when I grew up there. No major businesses to keep people going, just the small "mom and pop" shops.

One shoe store, one shoe repair shop, one bank for most of my time there, then another came in. Woo Hoo!
One of just about everything for most of my gowing years. There were two movie theaters, and one drive in threater. There was only one grocery store for a long time, before another opened up. As the town seemed to get larger, things like this started to happen.

There was one icecream place. It wasn't an icecream parlor, but a place where icecream was kept. There were gallons of it in this large icebox thing. Nothing fancy, believe me. But, that was one fun experience, to go get icecream there.

But, there were some stores that prospered because they were the only one. The hardware store was one of those. And we had a Gambles department store (ever heard of them?). Not much of a department store, though. Most things had to be ordered from the catalogue. And, all floors were wooden, and some were less than in good repair. All were very good kindling, in case of a fire.

There were a couple doctors and a small no good hospital. The doctors made house calls!

Everybody knew everybody. Literally! There was not a person who walked down a street that I didn't know their name, and where they lived. And, they knew the same about me. That was the horror of growing up in such a town. You have no privacy. And, a kid needs privacy, dammit!
I didn't know everyone as a friend, but I did know everybody's name, etc.

There was one hangout that everybody who wanted to be seen came to on a Saturday night. And, the main drag that every high school kid drove all night long. It went past all of the places of interest and back again. Some people drove this path, and some selected spots along this path to sit and be seen. It's a small town sort of entertainment.

My town was small, but it was still larger than a lot of other towns around. We were lucky to have the best fireworks displays on the 4th, and before I started high school, a new one was built. Before the new one, students went to school in an old college that had cashed in.

It was a wonderful building with tall pillars in front and pretty marble floors and ornate woodworked walls. You knew you were in a house of learning, when you went in there. But, progress told the towns people to tear it down. A very stupid idea. They didn't need to tear it down. After all, they didn't build anything in it's place, except grass.

And, my dad went to college there. He got his degree there. So strange to have my dad go to college in the same building my sisters went to high school.

The new high school was cool, though. The old one had several stories, where the new one was all layed out in wings, like a hospital. To this day (35 years later), I bet it is still seen as a well designed school.

We had a small police force. Not much of one, really. They all were either drunks or old men that slept behind some sign, when they should have been on duty. Then, there were these two kids (twins) who were too young to carry a gun. It was so strange to see police that young, trying to keep the peace.

There were kids who had hotrods and they would always speed past the cop on duty. He would take chase, but the hotrod would always win and lose them. This went on for years until the State Police came in and started patroling. Then, the hotrods had to go to the smaller towns for a fix of that sort.

There was one town of about 15 people (give or take a family), and they were all related. They had one cop that patroled the only street through town. It was one of those "if you blink you'll miss it" type of places. The hiway was 60 miles an hour, but through that town it was 35 mph. The cop would always take chase but rarely caught you, unless you stopped on your own. That was the only business of this town, as the people went to the next town for jobs.

All of these little towns played against each other at football, and there were rivals who would come and race their hot cars against the other team's hot cars. Maybe they raced for pink slips, but I don't remember. I think it was just for bragging rights.

These towns will someday be suburbs, I would expect. They all gain and lose people as time goes along. Some have the courthouse in the center of town, with the brick streets. These were called county seats, where everybody had to go to get a driver's license. Our town was one of the first to have it's own city hall and driver's license bureau. Another Woo Hoo!

Someone had a wild hair up their ass and decided the town would do better with one way streets. Everybody thought it was a stupid idea, but went along with it. The main drag was one way "into" town, and we had a city square (no courthouse on it, just a city park) that had one way streets around it. There was only one way to go around this park because of the stupid streets.

The city department raised money to build a gazzebo in this park to display an old time fire truck. The city band played in this gazzebo every Thursday night. They practiced on Wednesdays, so there were two nights of K.L. King and John Philips Suza marches in town. All of the older folks loved to come sit in the park and listen.

We had a city swimming pool, and kids from other towns came to swim. We even had Red Cross swim lessons, and kids would be driven in yellow school buses from surrounding towns for morning swim lessons. One month of shivering kids, purple lips and chattering teeth. Those cold mornings weren't the best time to learn how to swim.

The town has grown to about 6,000, now. The city fathers got the OK for a prison and anexed it for the population. You see, you get more state money, if you have more people living in your town. And the prison was one way to keep the population up. Now, there are two prisons. One minumum security, and one maximum security. More captive citizins!

Other "large town" things have started to happen, too. There is now a McDonalds, a Hardys, Pizza Hut, and a Dairy Queen there. And, to the dismay of the "mom and pop" stores, Walmart moved in. Now, the downtown shops are pretty much going under.

All the time I lived there, we only had one stop light. All others were either just blinking red lights or stop signs. We were the only town that had an actual stop light. it was at the crossing of our two largest streets. DUH! We weren't dumb!

Now, if you ever want to see this town, you can. There was a movie made there. Yep! And, a famous person stared in it! Yep! Michael Douglas! Yep! Well, it was only his second movie, and nobody in the midwest really knew who he was. After all, this was 1970. And, that was back when kids had long hair, and I was one of them.

I could have been an extra in the movie, but I would have had to cut off my hair. There was no way I was going to do that! Now, I kind of wish I had. I could have been FAMOUS!

OK, before I tell you the name of the movie, I need to explain some things. First, the story was written by someone who for some reason said it HAD to be filmed in my town if they wanted to make the movie. I guess it all worked out, huh?

Also, the town wasn't large enough for the plot, and there weren't enough places they needed for some scenes, so other towns were used for several scenes. You won't notice this, of course, but all of the home towners did, when we had the preview screening. It was strange to see one scene that was filmed in town, and the next scene in a town that was about 30 minutes away. But, the actors had only gone down the street, you see.

To make a long story short, it sure made my home town look larger than it was. And, Douglas worked on some oil pipeline, while in Missouri. Where the hell was that? I never saw it! Some writer's addition, I guess.

Most of the bar fight scenes were in different towns. These town folks were kind of pissed that their towns got such publicity. Of couse, nobody today could tell you about this, except the people who lived it. It was quite a nasty time.

The movie people even moved existing city bureaus to different spots. We never knew why, but for some reason they thought where they moved them to worked better for the plot, I guess.

One scene I watched them shoot was a scene where he first comes into town. This scene had the opening credits running over it. Douglas drove this red Porsche 911T from California to Missouri, because he wanted to find himself. Now, it seems they go the other direction for such things.

They filmed this scene of him driving into town and asking for directions over and over. They must have filmed it at least 20 times. I didn't see anything different in any of the shots, and there was no audible dialogue in the scene, either. I don't know what was different in any of these takes that made them shoot it so many times.
They also had a farm tractor gowing down main street. Never before and never after had a farm tractor gone down that street! Movie folks have such strange ideas!

And, it was quite a camera, too. Douglas was more than two blocks away from the camera at times, in this scene. That lense must have been very expensive, because he looked about 20 feet from the screen in the final cut. Quite an interesting experience for someone of my impressionable age to see that process and result.

Oh, a little inside note gossip...those one way streets I told you about? Well, Michael Douglas went the wrong way on a couple. But, the plot didn't go along with the one way deal the city fathers had come up with.

OK, now for the name of this wonderful movie...
Drum roll, please...
dbmdbmdbmdbmdbmdbmdbmdbdmbdmbdbmdbmbmdbmbmdmdbm, now, a CRASH cymbal!

"Adam at 6 A.M" was the name. Michael got his second Golden Globes nomination from his role. Yes, I know you have all seen it and now know a little more about the behind the scenes stuff, right?

Well, in case you're interested, Michael Douglas liked the town so much, he named one of his sons after it. I dare anyone to try and figure out which one it was.

And, if you ever get the urge to watch the movie, it was an above average movie, from the link I have added, below. And, I have it on VHS, if you want to come over and watch it with me! (Any subbie women interested in making a weekend visit?)

Also, it had some nice camera angles in it. I particularly liked the very last scene. Well worth it, just to see that, if you like such things.

Oh, and the people who wrote reviews on the movie? Everyone has their own opinion, I guess.

Yes, I grew up in a small town. But, it was so much more, really. I guess you had to be there?


http://us.imdb.com/Title?Adam+at+6+A.M.+(1970)#comment

Cadillac Michigan

It looks like snippetville!

Started as a logging community. Named for the founder of Detroit (No clue as to why) Built around two Lakes: Lake Mitchell and Lake Cadillac, joined by a canal named "Clam Lake Canal" because the two lakes where once Big Clam lake and Little clam lake, but it is only called "the canal." There is a camp spot right next to the canal and it is a good spot for fishing. there is a bridge over the canal. Under the bridge is the main spot in town for graffiti. (Alan was here, Donna Smith is a hoe, that kind of thing)


ONe of the founders was something Mitchell, therefore Main Streat is Mitchell street. At present you can go down-town (mainstreat) or to Cadillac West, where our second McDonalds is located and a few night clubs- The Sands for the older crowd, (a club/hotel upscale) or the Pines for the young crowd (a dance club/pizza parlor-bar/bowling alley seperated into three seperate sections. Golf is a popular pasttime, esp for tourists. McGuires is probably the biggest resort, with a golfing, hotel rooms, gift shop, a fancy resteraunt and a bar featuring live music (local bands).

Overwealminly white. There where 2 black girls in my school, one was adopted (white family also had an aisian boy and 3 kids of 'there own") didn't know the other girl. I thnk people mostly acted like they didn't 'notice.' I think most of the town is Irish- a fact that you don't really notice until you've lived somewhere else for a while. We *have* minorities, but they are generally blended down to *passing* for white. Your more likely to hear the words "dark complected" than black or mexican. We had a handful of aisians (mainly one family) before we had any other noticably ethnic families. I don't remember anyone really being treated diferently. There is one guy I went to school with who was quite dark (for Cadillac) -his dad was white as near as anyone could tell. I don't know what his story was, but he was very popular and I didn't even consider that he might be black until jr or sr year when it was like -oh! he is kinda dark! It certainly wasnt' discussed. I think if an *outsider* who was noticable black or mexican with accent and so forth had come into town, people would have taked very politely about it, but would have been all abuzz. In recent years, skinheads and wanna be sknheads have become something of a trend.

Lot of POT. Other than that, not many drugs until some guy from Grand Rapids came in peddalling some stuff.

We have lots of churches and lots of bars. (coincidence?) We have no Mall, but a couple of "shopping centers" also known as plazas or minni malls. We do have a Meijer, but no Sam's Club or anything like that.

The County Courthouse is a big and beautiful building. The family who lives in the house next door have a balcony and every year at christmas they set up a very elaborate display.

In the 90's there was 1 high school, 1 middle school (they where conected by a long hall way and shared a school library, and an auditorium. There where about 5 elementary schools. (Kenwood, Franklin, Lincoln, Cooley, McKinnly- I think thats it) Also there was Heritatige Christian which was the only private school I am aware of serving elementary through 12th grade. They usually had a graduating class between 3 and 7. The old Cooley School was turned into a teen center at night and during the day, it was the alternative education school. (There was also a new Cooly for the K-5th grade)

Coming into town on the highway you are greated with a Big Boy and a couple of other resteraunts. You will also see a very nice well kept and pretty cemetary. The catholics are buried on one side of the highway, and the protostants are burried on the other.

There's a lot more, I'll post as I think of it.

grrrrr

damn double post!

I got all excited when I first saw this thread. "Oh," I said to myself, "something useful to do with the year I spent in back country Alaska."

And then, after much careful consideration, I decided that about 400 residents, a coal mine, half a store and three bars, doesn't inspire thoughts of romance. Heck, me being pregnant was a major source of entertainment for almost an entire year.

I can't even really contribute to temperture questions. It was -60 degrees F in January when my daughter decided to make her appearance, and as high as 100 degrees F in the summer.

Fire control was don't cook when you're drunk. Go to the bar and have another beer instead.

Drive in Movies was something that those folks in the lower 48 have...... We get HBO... well, the hotel gets HBO and we all just hang out in the lobby when there's something we want to see.

Church groups sharing buildings? Um....well.....uh, not really. There were three bars, and we just kicked 'em to another bar if we didn't agree with them.....maybe that doesn't count though.

The more I type, the more I realize, that wasn't really a small town.....It was just a large drinking group with nowhere else to go!

Whisper

whispering_surrender said:

... The more I type, the more I realize, that wasn't really a small town.....It was just a large drinking group with nowhere else to go!
Whisper

Click to expand...

It's due to the truth of just such a statement as this that causes most Chambers of Commerce to be founded.

I tend to want to avoid small towns like the plague, but they sure do make for good storytelling.

I grew up in Houston, but right next to Houston was Pasadena, TX, which I guess could be counted as a small town, although it's much bigger than it used to be.

A more typical small town would be Columbia, LA where my husband's people come from. It is the Caldwell Parish seat, and it averages about 4000 people. It is 30 miles due south of Monroe (which is in Ouachita Parish). It sort of straddles the Ouachita River, although most of it is on one side of it. It probably gets its electricity from Louisiana Power & Light. Its water comes from wells, and is arguably some of the worst water you ever had the misfortune to taste. It has an almost brackish taste, very disconcerting if you're not expecting it. Occasionally I'd be at my ILs' house and be thinking uncharitable thoughts about some man in the family who'd used the john and walked off without flushing it, only to flush and have the water come back much the same color it was before I flushed. Many people drink bottled water if they can afford it.

The town is big enough to have a couple of dollar stores, but not big enough for a mall. It's big enough to have more than one grocery store, although I think that one of them expanded to two stores and took over the place where the Jitney Jungle used to be. There is an Ace Hardware store and (I think) some kind of Sears outlet.

The main religions are Baptist, Methodist and various Pentecostal type churches, although there is a Catholic church. First Methodist Church in Columbia is historical and is a really beautiful building.

Hwy 4 runs through the town. There is no way to pass through town without passing by the Riser Funeral Home. It has a really huge cool cemetery on a hill, but all my ILs are buried in the Old Bethel Cemetery in Clarks.

It is big enough to have a library, but not big enough to have a movie house, although you there are places where you can rent videos. It has a small hospital.

The town sits in the middle of cotton and soybean country. There used to be a big, thriving timber industry. My husband's grandfather once owned a mill there and was one of the parish's biggest employers.

When the Depression came, he lost most of his money and property. His wife, my husband's grandmother, was the daughter of a Baptist preacher and was very devout. Once he (my GFIL) had the chance to invest in a real estate package called Five Points. However, when his wife found out that there was a saloon on the property, she took to her bed in the typical passive-agressive way she had and proceeded to go into a decline, so he passed up the opportunity. Pecanland Mall in Monroe was where that property was. This lost chance to regain the wealth of yesteryear was the reason my MIL broke with the Baptists church. I figure it to be my good fortune--had my husband been born with a solid silver spoon in his mouth, his parents would have had some politico's daughter lined up for him and I might never have even met him.

Columbia has one high school. For higher learning, one can go to NLU in Monroe.

As far as I'm concerned, the Internet has had nothing but a salutary effect on the place, and all places like it. I was cheered every time I passed through the town and saw stores advertising computers and internet access. Makes it seem more like civilization.

There's more to the place, but that's all I can come up with, without doing some serious research. Later on in the thread, I will discuss the town of Vidalia, which is on Concordia Parish, and across the river from Natchez, MS, itself a pretty small town.

I'm glad this discussion exists. I need to find out more about the central Texas hill country--maybe someone can help me?

I used to live in amennonite town, more like a village with 550 people living in it.

Don't remember much and the things I do remember probably would throw too many sliders to make my post any use.

Small town description

I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin. It was in the southwestern portion of the state, near the Mississippi River, population about 700, a little smaller now. A small river ran through the town, inside the "city" limits were two bridges over the river. When I lived there, there was a high school and a grade school (1st thru 8th), but the high school has since been combined with a neighboring town's high school and is located halfway between the two towns. This was a farming community, that means the the entire reason for the town's existence was to serve the farmers living in the surrounding area. The high school had an enrollment that varied from 150 to 200. The lower grades, freshman and sophomore, were usually the largest classes because many of the farm kids quit school as soon as they turned 18. In my freshman class, for instance, we started with 76 kids, and graduated four years later with 21, which included at least five who had transferred in from other schools.

Wednesday and Saturday nights were the big shopping nights in town. Farm families came in to do their shopping, and especially on Saturday night to do their drinking and dancing. Stores stayed open until 10:00 PM on those nights, but usually closed about 6:00 PM on all other nights, and most were closed on Sunday. Taverns, and there were seven of them (!) plus two beer taverns within a mile of the city limits, usually opened about ten in the morning and closed by state law at 1:00 AM (I may be mis-remembering that...it might have been 2:00 AM). In Wisconsin in those days the legal drinking age for hard liquor was 21, but the legal age for beer was 18, so there were many beer taverns scattered aroung the country side. Few of the beer taverns were inside the city limits, since people didn't want drunken teenagers staggering around the streets...they'd rather have them driving on the roads.

The three grocery stores, a variety store, a "Gamble Store" (sort of a tiny department store), barber shop, hairdressers, and the seven taverns were easily supported and seemed to all do a thriving business.

People were generally friendly, although we had our grouches and weirdoes. Several town drunks, who everyone knew and everyone sort of watched out for. Everyone knew everyone else, but in spite of that we kids got away with a hell of a lot...and I think a lot of the adults did too.

Small town schools have a hard time meeting the salary demands of teachers, so our teachers were mostly young and just out of school, or older and nearing retirement. Many of the latter were locals who had grown up in town, or had married someone who had.

Most residents were related to a lot of the other residents, but there were also quite a few non-related, like my family, who had moved into the area for various reasons. I wasn't born there. As far as I can remember, there were very few religious tensions. Catholics tended to date and marry Catholics, and Protestants dated and married Protestants, but there were quite a few exceptions. We had friends from all the religions in town, and all the churches supported each others' church suppers.

To the best of my knowledge there were only two Jewish families in town, no blacks (although in the summer the town ran a youth center in the school gym and for several years there were three black guys from La Crosse, the nearest "big" city, that worked at the youth center). I think the rest of the town was pretty evenly divided between Catholics and Protestants, the Protestants being scattered amongst Methodist, Lutheran, and Congregational.

There was a town marshal, but no police. The town marshal basically made sure the drunks on Saturday night didn't tear the town down--they came close several times--and harassed underage drinkers.

There was one theatre when I lived there, but it is long since closed. Like most farming communities, the town seems to be slowly dying. It's a shame. It was a great place to grow up.