patrick.net

I grew up in the foothills and mountains of South Carolina.
The small town I lived in, had a school age population of only about 300 or so. That's about 25 pupils per grade/class.

The town population was about 1200.

Tenpoundbass says

I grew up in the foothills and mountains of South Carolina.
The small town I lived in, had a school age population of only about 300 or so. That's about 25 pupils per grade/class.

The town population was about 1200.

Twice as big as my town, although I was in the suburbs of it. Can you give me a map location? I'd like to explore it. I've only been south of the Mason Dixon line once, if you ignore Australia.

Have you moved to a city since then? It's so different, I feel I've run the gamut of life experience in living. I lived in Boston for 6 months. For 5 of them, I wanted to kill myself. Concrete and just humans everywhere. You might see a bunch of pigeons or rats, but that was it. Just miserable. I don't know how people live a life in a shitty.

My parent's cabin often had raccoons, they are adorable, but mean as hell. We'd hear something outside, and turn on the lights, and see six of them climbing a tree frozen in terror staring at you expecting you to attack, which of course we didn't - but they dispersed once we returned to the cabin. One place I stayed at for a family reunion had a bear that regularly broke into the trash. The people that owned the place brushed it off, told us it was harmless, and it was - as long as you didn't interfere with it. I rather miss wildlife.

For better or worse, nearly all my pets as a kid were abandoned animals from the shitty. We'd find some starving dog or cat, and beg our parents to let us keep it until they relented. The rural area I grew up in was a dumping ground for animals that assholes once owned.

Upstate New Yawk: where the sun only shines for three hours on Sundays. "Do you have rickets? I have rickets. Everybody has rickets."

Originally suburban Chicago, infinite people around.

But when I was 9, we moved to Chelsea, MI, which was about 4,000 people. Now it's about 5,000. Just a little town along the main highway and tracks between Chicago and Detroit.

After college I moved back to Chicagoland, lived there 3 years, then out to California.

richwicks says

I don't know how people live a life in a shitty.

I once heard the younger Mayor Daley say "The great Shitty of Chicago" in a speech on the radio. I laughed for days, because it's so appropriate.

Though of course if you're rich, you can live in some pretty nice areas, like the Gold Coast.

Ceffer says

Upstate New Yawk: where the sun only shines for three hours on Sundays. "Do you have rickets? I have rickets. Everybody has rickets."

Haha, we had sun up to sun down from 7:00 am to nearly 10:00 at night in the summer solstice.

Of course, we all wanted to kill ourselves in the middle of winter. Sunup at 10 and gone by 4:00.

Great place to visit, but you don't want to live there, especially in winter. But I do miss the wildlife.

Patrick says

Though of course if you're rich, you can live in some pretty nice areas, like the Gold Coast.

Easy to become rich, just drop every moral standard you have.

I'm an atheist, but I still have morals. The scumbuggery I've seen... I have to believe this is a property of the people I work with, and not a general reflection on society. If society is like this, and I know about it, I'm going to totally abandon my morals. I'd prefer not to become a hollow shell of a man.

Eastern Europe, grew up alternating living in a village (300-400 inhabitants) and city (500,000). Liked part of my life in village immensely more, but that might be related to fact that many (quarter) of inhabitants were my relatives...so as a 4-year old kid, you can wander around village, be fed in nearly every house by bored old ladies, and in general have lifestyle which by now is completely lost (no supervision once you are three - just show up home at time to go to bed, great for being independent).

I spent 1-3 grades in a small town in MI. I do not remember how many students were in my school (1st grade through 12th, small church school, not public) but my class consisted of me, my cousin and 2 other kids. Some grades had 1 student and I know there were not even 30 kids total. Heck, my family had 5 kids in the school and there were 4 of my cousins in the school as well. We made up probably close to a 3rd of the total student body.

richwicks says

Have you moved to a city since then? It's so different, I feel I've run the gamut of life experience in living.

Yeah I moved to South Florida at age 17.
I miss running through the mountain game trails in the woods, swimming in a river while drinking the same water. Drinking from water bubbling up from the ground in the woods, the crunch of fresh snow under your feet, in the woods, echoing off the trees, snow falling from the trees.

My buddy and I, used to pick Mountain laurel and sold it to a guy that took it and sold it to people who sold it to decorators, and florists. We would pick about two bales each. And get about five bucks when we cashed in. Just enough to go watch what ever movie was playing at the one plex. I also made cash as a kid picking apples during harvesting time, back when South Carolina was huge apple producer. Also picked Peaches in Georgia not far away, also when you could buy ripe soft sweet juicy peaches at the grocery store.
Also cut and split firewood with my neighbor that would deliver split firewood by the cord. He drove that F150 up inclines I thought we was just going to fall nose over tail back down the mountain.

Oh South Florida has the Beach, whooptie doo!

I would like to buy about 10 acres or more up there, that isn't part of a HOA and has loose land use restrictions.

I was born in a small town too. Family moved to CA when I was teenager.

I’m not sure how to describe it.
My parents were from a small town in New York State which resembles the towns in some Twilight Zone episodes.
Everyone was nice, so my mother, grandmother, grandfather and relatives were all nice.
I grew up spending summers in a microscopic town in Martha’s Vineyard, walked to the general store and later got into spearfishing, scuba diving, sailing, clamming, fooling around. Our second place was several miles from the little town, but it had a movie theater and a hamburger stand.
I did odd jobs for neighbors to make money to eat hamburgers and fried clams in town. My parents didn’t give me free money to eat out, they said there was food in the house.
I had a bicycle we found at the dump, but I found out that it’s much easier to hitchhike around which I did.
The other months I lived in Staten Island near a large park, the suburbs, but not an hour away from Manhattan if you timed the ferry right.
I’m older so I can remember when the Verrazano bridge was built, and the World Trade Center also.
So, for a while I rode a ferry to get to where I lived winter and summer.
I played sports with my friends all the time, half court basketball and touch football.
The kids sounded like Tony Danza sometimes. Tons had Italian grandparents, others Polish and Irish.
We were the oddballs in the neighborhood because my parents were not from the metro area.
I can remember old Italian men roaming the Staten Island ferry wearing denim coats and carrying a wooden shoeshine box “shine! Shoe shine!”
In high school I left for a boarding school and maybe have been back to Staten Island a few times since the early 70’s
I never saw a Mexican until I went to California in 1979.

I moved from downtown LBC pine ave for 20 years to remote 45 miles from town seven years ago at 42. Early retirement in, sold business, wife and I still working for CA companies 150k. Paid off home on river. Not shabby and no 405

Never lived anywhere but Los Angeles.

But trust me, the suburbs in the 80’s were very very different from today. Not everything was ok, but most of it was. By the 90’s things started going to hell. You couldn’t go into LA at all. And the suburbs started getting gang and other issues. Shootings at the West Covina mall started becoming regular occurrences. The Offspring song “The kids aren’t alright” is not far off the mark. Funny, that’s song is from 1998I think...right as the first millennial kids entered their late teenager years. It seems some of the silent generation rubbed off on Gen X, particularly the never give up/never say die attitude. Of course GenX went from the stupid boomer motto of “fight the system” to “fuck em”. But none of this give up and quit and die bullshit of the millennials.

Going back to my father and mother’s upbringing, also in Los Angeles, in the 40’s and 50’s, it was like night and day. OC was entirely rural and my dad used to go there to go hunting as a kid and fishing in Newport Beach.

Even going to Disneyland the first few times I remember all the orange orchards along the 5fwy.

I actually think that as much of the divide is generational, there’s an argument to be made that is rural vs urban.

clambo says

The kids sounded like Tony Danza sometimes. Tons had Italian grandparents, others Polish and Irish.

Put in Jew for Italian, and you got me right there. Had Irish grandma, Jewish grandpa, Polish grandma. Irish grandpa died when my dad was seven. Alcohol, I think.

I used to hate the whole Chicago deal, but now I see there is a kind of chic to the shittiness of it all. I loved The Sopranos because it reminded me of Chicago, especially the intro drive Tony takes through the shitty areas. And Tony reminds me of my grandpa, who was a bookie.

And then "Shameless" was a fun series about the Irish who stayed in the urban areas of Chicago after they got really bad. Most of them moved to pretty well-kept suburbs.

clambo says

I never saw a Mexican until I went to California in 1979.

Exactly. Me neither. Went back to Chicago to visit relatives two years ago and was shocked to see that the old Polish neighborhood is now more Mexican than Polish. Still shitty though!

Moving to a small town in Michigan was suddenly being in "real" America where no one was a bookie and there were actual farms and 4H farmer kids who would raise animals to show at the annual fair. Kind of weird at first in some ways, but I fit in well enough.

richwicks says

I live in Silly Con Valley now, but I grew up here:

I grew up close by in Lewis County. 500 K-12 graduated with 37 other souls. No traffic lights.

I've been through your town a few times I think, but only because it's on the way to Tupper Lake. Which also has nothing except lumberjack pussy.

Since Patrick mentioned the Sopranos....
In the introduction there is a quick view of the old Goethals Bridge to Staten Island. It’s been replaced since the show began.
It appears that Tony is driving around Elizabeth NJ, just over the bridge to Staten Island.
A lot of mafiosi lived in Staten Island. They were into all kinds of mischief.
A jewelry store not far away was busted for making counterfeit subway tokens.
An Italian bakery not far away had cute girls working there; in the back there was porno production (on 8mm or 16mm, called “stag films”.)
Some mafiosi lived in nice areas of Staten Island, such as Todt Hill.
Staten Island is the only place in the metro area with any elevation.
An Italian kid in freshman year of high school told me about the racehorse he owned running at Aqueduct.
That’s like saying you drive a Ferrari and you are 16, something is odd.
The mafia like cash businesses to hide profits, so they owned jukeboxes, laundromats, and restaurants.
My friend had an “Uncle Joe” who was like a guy from central casting or Bugs Bunny; big cigar in his mouth, drove a Cadillac, gold jewelry, nice pants and shoes but a “wife beater” or “guinea T” sleeveless shirt.
If Uncle Joe wasn’t a mafiosi he was trying out for one in a play or TV show.
Once at a dinner, my friend’s wife’s parents (Italian) were there and an uncle from Brooklyn.
They were talking about someone else and the Brooklyn man asked: “Is dat da guy, dey broke his legs?”
I tried not to laugh but I think I did.

Small towns or rural are the best. Hands down.

Went to college at UIC in the city which is a great time to be in a city at that age. Once the party is done though, working full time and living in the city is rough. We stayed another 4-5 years after graduating. We had our fun for sure. Wife waitressed at a bar in Little Italy (the fake one) and we'd pull some all nighters and end up in Greek Town on Halsted pounding gyros completely plastered. Still the best drunk food in my book. White Castle has worked too. We've trashed some hotel lobbies with slider boxes all over the place, lol.

Did the suburban thing after that. Lived in Geneva, a yuppie suburb of Chicago once we had kids. That also was fun, but too expensive and too serious. Seemed like nobody had fun. Go out to dinner get a steak, have a glass of wine and go to bed on a Saturday. We're generally the life of the party, but that wasn't how it went there.

Mostly grew up in a rural area on a gravel road with 8 acres. Eventually some subdivisions came in, including the one my dad developed with the land. Sold 7 lots and did 1031's to avoid taxes and then got MC Hammered by the housing bust on a bunch of shit in FL. Epically bad timing and bad foresight.

I'm now in a rural area again, but in a town of 2k. Nice to have some amenities, but still small enough where there's no Walmart or Walgreens in town. Just small businesses. Plenty of bar/restaurant choices. Contemplating buying one with the neighbors, we'll see. This covid shit scares me getting into that. Might do a private club type thing and do BYOB so we don't have to deal with liquor licenses or future "pandemics" that arise.

And this is why I like patnet, you guys got me thinking of an idea. Now gonna research private clubs in IL. I think they only want $100k for the building and it's already a functioning bar. Damn. Good chat, lol.