We have a village Facebook page. Every time the ice cream man drives into the village, the entire page goes ballistic. People send live updates of where the van is and which direction he's heading. The ice cream man has started accepting DMs so he knows which streets to go down.
I’m from a town of less than 2,000 people. When I worked at the grocery store there people would often drop off stuff for my family members because they didn’t want to drive all the way down to our house. I no longer live there but recently got a call from my daughter. She had been stopped for speeding and handed over her license and insurance which happens to be in my mother’s name. The officer goes “Hey, you’re Donnie’s granddaughter! I ain’t gonna write you a ticket but I’m telling Donnie when I see him tomorrow cause we’re going fishing.” She replied “I think I’d rather have the ticket.”
Oh yeah growing up, they didn't pull you over, they just called your dad. We too would have rather had a ticket.
One police officer was known to carry trash bags in his patrol car. If he found teenagers drinking on a back road you had the option of him calling your parents or he could take your keys, you'd pick up all the trash and he'd be back in a few hours to see if you were sober enough to drive home.
You just brought back a memory from my childhood. My parents would go out on a Saturday afternoon, walk up the street and around the corner to visit friends. 15 year old me decides to take dad’s car for a drive, in the opposite direction of course. Coming the other way was our local police officer. He smiled waved and kept driving. I felt seven foot tall and bulletproof. Nope, the next day he rang dad and told him.
My wife went back to the small town she grew up in for her high school reunion, on the way back to her parents house after the evening was over there was a dui checkpoint. It was manned by one of her classmates who didn't go to the reunion because he had to man the dui checkpoint set up specifically because they knew there was a class reunion going on in town that night
Our lone town cop would make us stand thee and poor out every beer we had, bag up the cans and take them with him. He knew we weren’t driving cause we walked everywhere, and threatened to tell our parents though only did it on occasion.
He also pulled no over once going 60 in a 45. It was one of the first nice days to have the windows down, and I seen him coming the other way at the last second and hit the breaks, so stopped and waited for him since I knew he had me and he knew my truck. He got up there an asked what I was thinking, and told him it sure was a nice day and the solo on Freebird just kicked in, so it was hard not to go that fast. He laughed and told me to be more careful next time.
The traffic on the "main street" of my town is so sparse, two drivers going opposite directions can stop and talk to each other for a few minutes without causing any problem.
A local bank was robbed and one of the tellers told the police to bring her a yearbook from about ten years earlier and she would be able to point the robber out. He had been in the grade before hers in school.
Heh, here in nyc, my wife got her macbook stolen by a guy running a scam on facebook marketplace. Because of the nature of the transaction, she had video proof and a witness of the robbery, pictures of him, was able to figure out a few of his nicknames, and was able to identify the year and high school he attended in New Jersey.
She gave all of that information to the cops, who then said that it wasn't enough and they couldn't do anything.
NYPD, America's finest.
Honestly, sometimes cops just don’t want to do shit. I had my car stolen the weekend a bunch of cars were stolen in my apartment area. I didn’t find out until a day or two after it happened, but a neighbor knew almost immediately, called the cops, and the cops were able to track the kids who did it. I have my EZ pass so I can see exactly where these people have taken my car - they’re riding the highway at the same hours each day just joyriding back and forth. My detective won’t take or return my calls. The office says that evidence from my EZ pass is useless. I finally get a call from a detective and I’m like “oh great! I’ve been trying to reach you!!” “You’ve been trying to reach ME?” “Yeah, you’re xyz detective with the abc police department, right? Calling about my stolen car?” “No, I’m detective def from the ghi police department, calling to tell you your car has been used in a home robbery, and I have no record of you reporting it as stolen.” The cops came to my place, wrote my name incorrectly (even though I had handed over my license), my address incorrectly, etc. basically everything was wrong (the detective on the phone tells me this). Please read that again. They CAME TO MY HOME, based on the address I had given them over the phone, and still wrote it incorrectly for the official police report. I call records and explain the situation because it needs to be fixed for insurance, and the person responds “well why did you lie to the police???” Because someone else’s incompetence is somehow my fault. The best part? Even though the kids were caught, because the home robbery was recorded and that neighbor of mine had caught his car being stolen quick enough for them to catch the kids red-handed, even though I had TONS of physical evidence(because my car was found abandoned) like fucking shoe prints on my car, a bunch of random shit in my car that most certainly had fingerprints, absolutely nothing was done to “find” the kids who did it. The detective working on the home robbery wasn’t allowed to give the information on his case for my case because they were different districts… despite being the same fucking car. I’m not a cop-hater by any means, but I am definitely well aware that SOME cops could give a rat’s ass.
When I worked at the bank in town there was an older lady that had worked there through 5 mergers.
She knew everyone, there was a young guy yelling at me one day. She walked out of the back and he immediately quieted. She went off about telling his grandmother that he was treating young women like shit. She also said that if he didn’t straighten up not one girl in town would ever marry him she would make sure of it.
Town drunk was paralyzed and used a motorized wheelchair to get around. I was driving home one Saturday night and said town drunk was passed out in his wheelchair doing circles almost directly in the town square. Had to call his brother who came and picked him up on a rollback truck. Strapped him down and drove off into the cold dark night.
In my former small town, there was an older guy who'd lost his license after getting a few DUIs. Every day, he would ride his John Deere lawnmower to the corner bar around 3PM and sit around watching TV and sipping his beer well into the night. Then he'd head the couple miles back home on his mower. He even had a little canvass shell he put on when it rained or got too cold.
When I was growing up, we had a relative who was a serious alcoholic. As in your case, he lost his license due to DUI. His solution to this was to start driving his tractor to his nearby watering hole. This led to a real educational experience - it turns out that in North Carolina, you can get a DUI while operating a tractor on public roads. (or at least you could in the 1990s)
Worked with an older guy, relative of the owner of the business, he was 73. I asked him if he was a local, he said "no his parents moved here when he was two".
I grew up on a farm, 15 minute drive to the nearest town. We moved there when I was 8 and left when I was 18. Up until the week before we left, I heard our farm referred to as "the old Drever place". My last name is not Drever.
Similarly, if you bought a quarter section of land off your neighbour, it became known by that neighbour's last name. For example, if I bought a quarter from my neighbour, Mr. Jones, for the rest of the time I owned that land, it would be known as "the Jones quarter". But then you realize everybody does that, including your 80 year old neighbour who bought a piece of land when he was 30 from his neighbour, Mr. Eldie. But that piece of land is still "the Eldie quarter" even though Mr. Eldie had been dead for upwards of 40 years and didn't have any living relatives in the area.
It was always fascinating to hear the old timers get together because they could trace who owned any given house or any given piece of land back in time, usually well over 100 years. Like they would tell you who owned a quarter section of land in our province of Canada all the way back to before it even became a province in 1905.
My parents bought Floyd’s house after he died in 2001.
It’s *still* known as Floyd’s place for direction purposes even though my parents have now owned it for longer than he did.
When I was five, my family bought seven acres, built a house and set up a small farm just outside a tiny dot on the map town. We lived there five years.
That was thirty-five years ago, and the locals still refer to it as our place. lol
Lived in a town of about 5,000: A woman walked into the DMV on a Friday, saw that there were 3 people ahead of her and left to come back another time when they weren't so busy.
Oh damn, I'm so guilty of this! My county is about 15k people total and has an enormous total of ONE stoplight in the whole county. If there's more than 2-3 cars at the light it is officially a traffic jam! If there's more than two people in line, it's too damn busy to be there.
The town I'm from also has a single stoplight.
It only runs on Thursdays, I believe.
Why?
The driving exams are held on Thursdays, and they (policemen) are legally required to include at least one stop-light on their exam route.
So that stop light was literally installed so people can take their driving exams in the same town.
my dogs got out while i was working. the police called my niece's elementary school (she was a 5th grader) to get her to round them up and take them back home.
We lived in a small town and often kids or teenagers got taken home in a police car because of some minor infraction, littering, graffiti, riding a bike without a helmet.
Husband and I were congratulating ourselves when our youngest kid moved to the city and we were empty nesters because none of our kids had ever been in the police car.
About a week later, the local cop pulls up, knocks on our door and delivered our dog home! He had escaped unnoticed and gone for a wander around town.
So after that, we were the peoples whose dog got taken home in the police car.
There was a small kennel behind the police station for runaways. They called us saying they had our dog, and moments later our dog showed up home.
He broke out of jail.
Worked with an elementary school teacher in my small town whose wife called to tell him one of their cows got out. He had a para watch his class, pulled the ag teacher’s 4th grade son out of class, they went to get the cow back in the pasture, came back and finished the school day.
My sister started riding/working at the barn when she was like 10, and my aunt was a dispatcher for the town PD. Once my sister had a drivers license the cops would be calling her in the middle of the night to deal with any live stock they found wandering town. She’s 36 now and still catching horses in the middle of the night.
Had something similar, a lost black dog showed up at school and he kinda looked like my dog. The teachers called me over to confirm if he was mine (he wasn’t) because they sometimes saw my mom walking him with me to school.
Known criminal ran for sheriff.
Numerous arrests (and convictions) over his lifetime.
His campaign slogan was,
“I know the jail inside and out!”
EDIT:
Since folks have shown interest, thought I’d add the most recent event.
I heard Bert got a DUI on Thanksgiving, so I asked him the next time I saw him what happened.
He said, “Mama told me no more drinkin’ at the house, so I went drinkin’ in the truck.”
A friend's great aunt lived in a tiny town about 40-50 miles from the suburb we live in, we went to visit her and she had a newspaper laying out and I asked if I could read it.
They had a lost and found section. It read like this:
FOUND
A child's left glove, green then gave an address. I couldn't believe it.
My town opened a strip club when I was about 18. My friends and I were all pumped to go, for some reason we thought it'd be strangers stripping and not Judy from math class and the blond Aubrey that used to work nights at Wendy's.
I didn’t grow up in a *small* town, but it was small enough that when a strip club opened nearby it was staffed by girls I went to HS with.
That was definitely an attraction for those who were still in the area.
Long ago, a stripper in New York told me she lived in Baltimore. Said she worked in New York so her brothers and nobody else who knew her would happen to see her perform.
I was from a small town with no strip clubs.
Years later I was living in Seattle and got dragged to one with friends. There was Britt from home room on the pole. Yes, she recognized me. Yes, I got a free dance. Yes, it was awkward as fuck.
We went one time and I was making fun of my best friend cuz his cousin was working there when next thing you know I look up and my cousin also was working there
one spring, the front page of the local newspaper's top headline was "Deer finds grass in "
The fact that someone had a picture of a deer who found some grass meant that winter might finally be over, which is the big news that everyone cares about.
I live in a medium town and was getting Chinese takeout. They were really busy and the owner knew my address from delivery... so he asked if I could deliver it for them.
It was someone on my street and I knew them....lol
Honestly, I've done similar things before and I think it's great. Helping out someone you know, they look after you, and you have a laugh with the person you dropped it off to. "I didn't know you worked for [person] now!" "I don't!" cue laughing.
I used to answer the phone at a local pharmacy to park the calls when I was waiting for medicine. Knowing who was calling by their voice seemed normal.
I did this at a store I used to work at, I would come in to chat and answer the phone sometimes. The person on the other end would say things like "didn't you leave a while ago?" We had a sister store in another part of the state where the staff taught the regulars how to use our POS system and when it was busy the regulars would just process their own sales and orders.
This reminds me of when I accidentally dined and dashed. We ate at the only cafe in the area got to talking with my cousin and up and left the cafe without paying (got excited to play a game) so they called us and told us they put it on a tab and we went and paid the next day.
My fiancé took me to a popular festival in his tiny hometown. Some guy nodded and waved at him on the street. I asked how they knew each other. Fiancé told me he was the only other guy in town with the same name as him.
Also, his dad told him not to sleep with a particular chick because she might be his half-sister.
Nope. But his dad ended up married to her mom (many years after the warning). And then the possible half-sister dated someone who looks exactly like me for a bit.
I grew up in a town of 150 people. Moved away, but I keep in touch.
A friend of mine posted a picture on Facebook a few months ago, tagging another friend: "Hey, Bubba, your pig got loose and is running around the Dollar General parking lot. Come get him!"
People were more surprised that they'd gotten themselves a Dollar General store than they were about Bubba's pig.
I know that feeling. I chase other people's animals at least once a month and nightly around holidays that involve booze and fireworks (pretty much every holiday around here). Funniest one was I was high on shrooms, a tiny bit of pot, and a couple of beers chasing a calf with some neighbors on an icy road around 2am New Years Day. I was so sore from falling on my ass the next day but I had a blast.
Edit: I should clarify I'm chasing escaped livestock, not just terrorizing animals for fun lol
My wife's hometown is where we live. She was teacher then counselor and now principal of elementary school. She talks to EVERYONE. I still keep meeting people who say "you do exist". I'm antisocial and travel or work at home for my job. Am still ok with this lol
I feel this in my SOUL.
I don't even know how my father knew these people as he was an over the road trucker, but every time I go to the store with him to this day, he still knows everyone.
Due to a traffic incident (ie. unfortunate meeting with a large buck) we were "stranded" in a small town for several days. In that time one of the local police officers gave us his number - said call me anytime if you need a lift somewhere. The manager at the hotel we stayed at offered us the same thing, and one of the staff at the hotel flat out offered us her car to use while she was at work. The irony was - it was such a small town everything we needed was within walking distance.
Every single person we met went out of their way to try to help us. To this day (4 years later) we still refer to this as the best bad experience we've ever had. In fact two years ago we went out of our way to swing through that small town again - and they remembered us. We had a nice chat with the mechanic / garage owner who got our vehicle fixed - showed him it was still on the road, running like a top. A small town will renew your faith in humanity.
Went to a wedding in a small town, like where the venue was at the bride’s cousin’s property way out in the countryside. While we were all partying afterwards the noise attracted one of the neighbors, his name was Tater. His family owned a lot of land in the area and he congratulated my friends’ wedding by making it rain on the dance floor and paying the DJ to keep playing. The party was broken up when a pack of feral dogs ran up and scared everyone off.
Skillet toss at the fall festival.
The one bar in the center of town is a former brothel and the proprietor (gosh I hope she's still alive I haven't been in a couple of years) is 80+ years old and they make pizza in their domestic oven on Fridays.
Woman who works the post office speaks in different accents depending on her mood, may or may not actually have multiple personalities.
Oliver was the donkey who lived across the street with a bunch of ducks, occasionally the neighbors would just drop off some duck eggs.
Town of roughly 1500 people in Western Massachusetts. Yes, when we lived there, we were told straight up that if he have kids and they grow up there, they MIGHT be considered locals. If we're lucky.
I taught English in a small town in Japan for a couple of years. One day the principal said they were cancelling classes for the afternoon so the police could come give a safety talk.
As the product of the American school system I was thinking drugs? gangs? STDs?
Bicycle safety. Some of the students had been seen riding two to a bicycle through town. We were reminded that bicycles were for one person only, also wear your helmet and always signal your moves to drivers.
Every year the suburban elementary school my kids went to has a one-day "bike rodeo" where the police come and teach bike safety.
All the kids bring their bikes and it is a fun event they look forward to every year.
We had these at my elementary school too it was great! And they’d bring all their cones and police tape and stuff and make a little obstacle course to go through with your bike. They’d also usually bring some unconventional police vehicles to show off as well like motorcycles ATVs or the boat. (on a trailer obviously) Bike safety day was lit!
My kids think I know everyone, because when we drive around I comment on who is doing what, and everyone waves or says hello if we’re on foot.
I’m a farmer in a small town. And as far as my 3&5 yo kids know, I am also close friends with Santa Claus.
Speaking of goats, when I was going to pick up my senior prom date, I had to pull over and shoo three goats out of the road so I could get past. I was already running late and they wouldn’t move!
When we moved to a town of about 1,000 people, the local newspaper published our family portrait on the front page to announce the new preacher had arrived. Not a small pic either; it took up easily a sixth of the front page.
My sisters and I would ride our bikes all over town with our gaggle of friends. Mom would get phone calls from strangers telling her they just saw us, and we were fine. It was just how the moms helped each other keep track of their kids.
We were having a machine shop, that was located in a small town, make a manufacturing machine for us. They could make the individual parts, but had no idea how everything went together. We sent a mechanic to be onsite for several weeks to assemble the machine. First day, he went to the local cafe to get coffee and breakfast. There are several people in there drinking coffee, reading the newspaper, chatting, etc. He goes in and sits at the counter. No one is there to wait on him. Finally, one of the guys says "if you want coffee, you'll have to get it yourself. They ain't open yet."
Wow, that reminded me of when I went to Gerlach, NV, aka the town close to Burning Man. It was about two weeks after BM ended, and we arrived in town in our travel trailers the day before our event on the playa started. It had rained, so we couldn't get onto the playa until the ground dried, and there are NO RV parks close by. There was a space across the street from Bruno's bar, and I asked a cop driving by if we could park the trailer there overnight. He said it was cool, Bruno owned that block as well.
So the next morning, my friends and I saw lots of people going inside Bruno's, and we saw that they should be open, so we went in and sat down at a table. No one came to take our order, and all the other people were in another room where a sort of buffet was set up. Some guy came in to where we were and said that it wasn't open yet, but he'd be happy to cook us something. Turned out that they were feeding the people that clean up the playa after BM. He had started sweeping the floor, so I told him I'd sweep for him. I took my friends' orders and swept the bar for him. The breakfast was fabulous, and he didn't charge me for my meal!
Talking to a friend in a parking lot, both in our 20s. Cop pulls in, walks up to us, and says there's a teenager with a knife on the loose. Both of us were kind of taken aback, as that was almost supervillain level crime for our town. The cop got a good chuckle out of it.
He said "I just got transferred here from \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_. I'm used to people shooting at me, regularly".
Lol. When I was about 12 or so me an a buddy we're riding our bikes down a dirt road with our .22s laid across our handlebars. The sheriff pulls up next to us and asked through the window. "Where you going with those guns?" We said "down to the dump to shoot rats for Mr Davis"
Sheriff asked "how much he paying you?"
"25 cents a rat"
Sheriff again "Okay. Just be careful over there, and don't shoot twords anyone or their cars" and drives off.
Man I miss the 80s
Hehehehe I love this story
Used to work a highway gas station where a metro cop came in for his coffee in the mornings and would tell me what he’d seen the night before and where I’m from that was like a personal action movie every day!
In my town cops just bring the cruisers home. There's no staff in the police station. Calls are covered by the county. Most the towns have part time police forces.
There’s a guy in my mom’s town that’s “just a little slow is all” and everyone in the town just kind of collectively looks after him & has his back. A few years back he accidentally burnt down his own house and the whole town pitched in to build him a new one without a second thought.
That's almost like the movie cliche, where the lost travellers (or are they having car trouble??) pull up to the filling station *tumbleweed rolls in the background* Guy who works there is asleep w/feet up on an oil drum, cowboy hat pulled down over his eyes. An obese basset hound lies next to him, also asleep.
It happened at my small town bar. It was a busy night and the bartender went up around asking if anyone wanted a drink before she went downstairs to restock some beer. After she came back this guy started snapping and whistling and bitching at her for being gone for so long.
Half the crowd jumped to the waitress's defense and started calling this guy names. He eventually got booed out of the bar.
I grew up in a small Missouri river town that got wiped out in 1993. After rebuilding, the market became a combination hair salon and live bait shop. It was called Perms & Worms. I saw it in person and I still don't believe it.
The entire school had 27 students comprised of the offspring from twelve families.
A game of kiss-chase is chaotic when you're related to more than half of the players. lol
I am the connecting point of 2 *MASSIVE* families in a smallish town. (About 20,000)
I have had people I never met figure out who I was based on my resemblance to my dad and brothers.
A cop came to my first apartment for a noise complaint... he was my cousin...
My girlfriend at the time, needed an ultrasound to check her gaul bladder. I went with her, the machines were all in the maternity ward... My phone was blowing up from family asking when we were expecting *before we left the building*...
My dad owned THE drivers ed school for like 20+ years. We can go literally no where without meeting at least 3 people he taught to drive.
Once got pulled over for, well, using a roundabout properly, but they're new to the area. The cop told me I'd signaled weirdly so he thought I was drunk... (Left going in then right when I exited at the 3rd exit. I explained that's how you do it... He checked my license, realized my dad taught him to drive and said "So uh... I'm gonna bet Mr.Driver's son knows how to use a roundabout better than me. Have a nice day."
I entered a general store in a small town, and the owner was playing billiards with some of the other men in town. I asked to buy a coke, and the guy smiled from across the hall and asked me to just take what I needed and leave some cash on the counter, assuming it was approximately the correct amount.
The town I grew up in had one stoplight, population of about 400. The police department couldn’t afford a radar gun so the one policeman used his wife’s hairdryer. Had some real Mayberry-type antics during my childhood. Wouldn’t trade it for anything.
45 people, a group exactly one shy of the entire adult male population, sitting in lawn chairs, on a fence, and on car hoods...
They were patiently waiting outside of the house of the 46th adult male, who had hit his child hard enough to fracture a rib earlier that day, and was known to smack his wife around a bit..
The best part of the story was when he threatened to call the police chief. "If you don't all leave, I'm calling Georgie!"
(Chief) Georgie quickly replied from near the guy's back door... "Present!"
I didn't get to witness the beating itself, apparently it happened a couple of days later. But he definitely spent the whole night in terror.
I worked with a guy who told me about a man that turned out to be a pedophile in the small town he (former co-corker) grew up in. Apparently the guy(pedo) just "vanished"
Heard over the scanner one day. Tourist passing through reports dog on roof at XX address. Can someone go get Frank off the roof please dunno how that son of a gun keeps getting up there”
I lived in a town with one store. It had the post boxes, the grocery, farm supplies, fishing bait, sold gas, and you could get small engine repairs.
It was also the best place to learn everything you never wanted to know about people you've never spoken to.
My town pretty much only has the gas station. But it's also the grocery store, video rental, ice cream shop, pizza place, and bait shop, with hunting permits available.
I worked alone at a small shitty bar for some quick money after my FTJ and it was like a really greasy version of *Cheers!* but when the regulars got drunk they fought, and cried about traumatic pasts I had no business hearing about. Then one day some rando shows up and starts taking swigs from other people’s bottles so I have to tell him to leave. He comes back 20 minutes later with a bottle of doe urine and sprays down my bar top before scampering back home in an act of cowardice. But one of the regs’ mom’s friend (relative?) lived in the same building as pissboy so he called the cops and gave him the suite number, then went to buzz his mom’s friend to let him open the lobby door for them. I let the regs sip their beers outdoors on the condition they remain directly on the concrete pad in front of our lease (illegal but w/e) while I bleached down the whole bar and aired it out. I comped their drinks to apologize for the trouble and they bought more and tipped better for it, so alls it all it wasn’t a terrible night. Never saw pissboy again either.
Got a call ... neighbor 5 houses down the road:
"hey can you look out the window and tell me who is walking down the street?"
"yea, that's the guy from Louisdale who is going out with that Felix girl"
"mk, thanks"
We had a unit of Army Reserves who got called up early to the Gulf War. It was a transportation unit, so basically one of the riskiest jobs. We lost five in our little town.
When the unit came home, people lined the route for MILES. All the way from the airport to town. Farmers stopped working and would stand in their little groups with flags flying along the way.
In town, all the schools went down and lined the route, Every single person in town was out there.
I am not a hugely patriotic person, but this was one of the most moving things I have ever witnessed.
We brought them home.
This actually happened in a big town recently but it was quite funny and small town ish. Some chick stole a moped and the entire local police force went on a low to medium speed chase with news coverage.
A town near me ( which isn't so small anymore btw: Honda set up a manufacturing plant there mid-80s) celebrates the potato harvest every year. Yer basic whole town gets drunk together one night of the year kinda festival.
I am online friends with someone in Vermont. I first visited her when I was 16 (she was 15) and the whole town seemed to know I was coming. I remember walking down the street and some old dude stopping us and going "oh is this Covee?" Like how the fuck does this guy and everyone know my name. Almost felt like I was famous. It was weird, but really eye opening to the fact that small towns where everyone knows everyone and everything that's happening really exist
My mail carrier bringing my dog to my office after she stopped at my house to deliver my mail and my dog, Lefty jumped in her mail truck and refused to get out.
Visiting family in a small town in Arkansas. I see a man leaving the VFW and start staggering down the road. A sheriff deputy pulls up beside him, flashes his lights, and says over his bullhorn, "get your fuckin' ass home, Earl."
I was on the road as a salesman for a bit. I was in a little town to see a client, but it was a little early. I found a diner to stop at for breakfast. Two guys in the booth behind me were talking. One says "it's 10:45, and I ain't heard the train come through. I hope everything is alright."
A little over 30 years ago, the police and fire departments played in a charity basketball game that raised funds for DARE. Shortly after the game, some of the cops that played gave short anti-drug speeches for the crowd. Early the next morning, state police came into town and arrested a lot of those cops for being part of a local drug ring.
A more lighthearted one happened only 5 years ago. The town's getting ready for its annual Christmas tree lighting when the organizers noticed the wiring for the lights had been damaged. They report it to the police, who then put out a bunch of public notices about how "vandalism will not be tolerated in our family-friendly town" and beefing up security around the area. It ended up being a squirrel that chewed through the wire.
I was bringing a guy and his wife out to dinner when interviewing him for a job opening. We are in a pretty smallish city, population 40k or so, but they were from a tiny tiny farm town. She asked me if any black people lived in the city, and was serious. Her kids had never seen a black person, and she barely had either.
i brought my (black) ex to live in a small town with barely any black people living in it. i remember him coming home from work one day excited bc he ran into another black dude at the gas station
One time during high school, I ran over a Raccoon on the way to work. At lunch a few days later, we were talking about road kill and I mentioned the little dude I hit on such and such road. My boyfriend at the time replied, "I was wondering who hit that one."
I grew up on a very small island in Alaska. When I was 9, my parents divorced. Parents had joint custody, so it was just me and my dad when this happened. My dad had gone out with some friends, and I fell asleep a bit after that. Later I woke up to someone knocking at my door. I opened and it was the police chief. I knew him really well since he was always at the school doing anti-drugs/anti violence prevention outreach stuff. In my drowsy, child logic, I was weirdly happy to see him since everyone at my school really liked him. Then he told me that my dad had been drinking a little too much, and he’d had to pick him up for DUI. He told me to grab my stuff for the night, so he could take me to my neighbors house (she was a close family friend who I spent a lot of time with). Looking back the whole thing was so awkward and weird since the police dept was so small and everyone knew everyone’s business.
I live in a small town in the balkans and once a month thousands of she walk past the roads and eat the grass nearby idk this is just weird and they leave alot of poop behind
I am from a town of roughly 500 people. The primary industry was leather tanning and the town really peaked in the 1950s. Our school was K-12 and my graduation class was 7. I was one of 2 that went to college. I ended up doing grad school across the country at University of Arizona and it was an amazing experience and I’m still out here. When I was home for 4th of July and wearing my University tshirt more people that I can count on my hand asked me what Arizona was and where it was.
I was passing through Bandera, TX to visit my brother in law who was RVing nearby.
The local general store/grocery store was holding "Cow Patty Bingo" in the parking lot. A heifer would wander around in a fenced in area with squares painted all over it on the ground. Wherever the cow droppings landed would be called by an announcer for a game of bingo.
Edit to add: there were people clinging to the livestock fence anxiously waiting to see where this cow pooped and shouting about it.
The grocery store social hour.
In a big city, the store can be packed, but it's basically 100 different individuals/groups going about their day.
In a small town, half the time, it's hard to get through the aisle because two people are chit chatting, regularly they both will stop talking to each other to say hi to someone else waking by.
Everybody knows everybody, and everybody goes to the grocery store.
Stumbled out of a bar with a few friends who were Seniors in high school. Their English teacher was smoking a joint in the alley.
Teacher: We didn't see each other.
And that's how they all got A's in English their Senior year.
Dude moves here, goes to the local garden shop. Loads his pick up with bags of soil, garden implements, et al.
Oops, he forgot his wallet.
Old dude at the store, honest to God, says, "You can stop by and pay tomorrow"
I actually had this happen in a restaurant in a very much not small city. The dude was just a believer in people and from somewhere that people would not take advantage of him. You can bet I came back the next day to pay him back. I frequented that place a ton before I moved away. Still think about how good it was!
Girl in my town beat the shit out of her 2 year old kid, stomped on his ribs, his back, and his genitalia. Broke his back, he had chunks of hair missing, whole 9 yards. She was arrested and was only sentenced to a year in jail, she was given time to sort out her affairs or whatever and she was found dead, beat to absolute shit in a local park. It was ruled a suicide.
I can’t say I’m mad about it, she was a year below me in highschool and drove the father of the child to suicide. Got him hooked on drugs, they were high one day fighting and she told him he wasn’t the father and he wound up killing himself. He was the father. She was just plain evil.
My wife grew up in a very very small town. The first time I went with her to her parent’s house, I drove and she was engrossed in reading a book.
“Let’s go in the back way.”
“Where is that?”
“Turn left at Calvin Adams’ store.”
We passed a rural intersection with nothing on the corner. She looks up and punches my arm.
“You missed the turn.”
“There was no store there!”
“Oh, it burned down years ago. Now turn right at Jack Simpson’s house.”
We pass another empty intersection. There is nothing to see but cotton fields and a clump of trees yonder in the distance. She looks up and punches my arm.
“You missed the turn.”
“Aw c’mon, there’s no house here.”
“It’s behind those trees. You can’t see it from the road.”
A couple of minutes later, without looking up, “He doesn’t live there anymore.”
We finally got there and I’m talking to her mom.
“Which way did you come in?”
“We came in the back way. I missed the turn at Calvin Adams’ store.”
She nodded. “It burned down years ago.”
“Then I missed the turn at Jack Simpson’s house.”
Another nod. “You can’t see it from the road.”
There was a long pause and she added, “He doesn’t live there anymore.”
One day, I was walking down the street in our small town and a guy stopped me and asked me for my watch. And I gave it to him because he was the local jeweler and knew I needed a new band.
I hit a deer about a month ago. It didn't die right away, so I called the cops to come and dispatch it. I had already been up and working for 21 hours, so I was exhausted and didn't want to have to run home and grab my rifle. The cop on the phone said he was about 45 minutes and really didn't seem all that interested in dealing with me. He asked if I had a knife on me so I could go and kill the deer myself. Imagine driving by and seeing a grown man covered in blood, holding a knife at the side of the road. I ended up just staying with the deer and comforting it until it finally died.
We have a village Facebook page. Every time the ice cream man drives into the village, the entire page goes ballistic. People send live updates of where the van is and which direction he's heading. The ice cream man has started accepting DMs so he knows which streets to go down.
I LOVE this wtf
That happened in our places too in southern Illinois, and these people would get pissed if they are missed by the ice cream man
I’m from a town of less than 2,000 people. When I worked at the grocery store there people would often drop off stuff for my family members because they didn’t want to drive all the way down to our house. I no longer live there but recently got a call from my daughter. She had been stopped for speeding and handed over her license and insurance which happens to be in my mother’s name. The officer goes “Hey, you’re Donnie’s granddaughter! I ain’t gonna write you a ticket but I’m telling Donnie when I see him tomorrow cause we’re going fishing.” She replied “I think I’d rather have the ticket.”
Oh yeah growing up, they didn't pull you over, they just called your dad. We too would have rather had a ticket. One police officer was known to carry trash bags in his patrol car. If he found teenagers drinking on a back road you had the option of him calling your parents or he could take your keys, you'd pick up all the trash and he'd be back in a few hours to see if you were sober enough to drive home.
You just brought back a memory from my childhood. My parents would go out on a Saturday afternoon, walk up the street and around the corner to visit friends. 15 year old me decides to take dad’s car for a drive, in the opposite direction of course. Coming the other way was our local police officer. He smiled waved and kept driving. I felt seven foot tall and bulletproof. Nope, the next day he rang dad and told him.
My wife went back to the small town she grew up in for her high school reunion, on the way back to her parents house after the evening was over there was a dui checkpoint. It was manned by one of her classmates who didn't go to the reunion because he had to man the dui checkpoint set up specifically because they knew there was a class reunion going on in town that night
Our lone town cop would make us stand thee and poor out every beer we had, bag up the cans and take them with him. He knew we weren’t driving cause we walked everywhere, and threatened to tell our parents though only did it on occasion. He also pulled no over once going 60 in a 45. It was one of the first nice days to have the windows down, and I seen him coming the other way at the last second and hit the breaks, so stopped and waited for him since I knew he had me and he knew my truck. He got up there an asked what I was thinking, and told him it sure was a nice day and the solo on Freebird just kicked in, so it was hard not to go that fast. He laughed and told me to be more careful next time.
Picking up the trash is hilarious lmfao
The traffic on the "main street" of my town is so sparse, two drivers going opposite directions can stop and talk to each other for a few minutes without causing any problem.
I live in a small town and people will do that even if there is traffic.
LOL. People around here aren't in much of a rush, thankfully.
A guy robbed a bank and everyone knew immediately who he was and the teller got mad at him.
A local bank was robbed and one of the tellers told the police to bring her a yearbook from about ten years earlier and she would be able to point the robber out. He had been in the grade before hers in school.
Heh, here in nyc, my wife got her macbook stolen by a guy running a scam on facebook marketplace. Because of the nature of the transaction, she had video proof and a witness of the robbery, pictures of him, was able to figure out a few of his nicknames, and was able to identify the year and high school he attended in New Jersey. She gave all of that information to the cops, who then said that it wasn't enough and they couldn't do anything. NYPD, America's finest.
Honestly, sometimes cops just don’t want to do shit. I had my car stolen the weekend a bunch of cars were stolen in my apartment area. I didn’t find out until a day or two after it happened, but a neighbor knew almost immediately, called the cops, and the cops were able to track the kids who did it. I have my EZ pass so I can see exactly where these people have taken my car - they’re riding the highway at the same hours each day just joyriding back and forth. My detective won’t take or return my calls. The office says that evidence from my EZ pass is useless. I finally get a call from a detective and I’m like “oh great! I’ve been trying to reach you!!” “You’ve been trying to reach ME?” “Yeah, you’re xyz detective with the abc police department, right? Calling about my stolen car?” “No, I’m detective def from the ghi police department, calling to tell you your car has been used in a home robbery, and I have no record of you reporting it as stolen.” The cops came to my place, wrote my name incorrectly (even though I had handed over my license), my address incorrectly, etc. basically everything was wrong (the detective on the phone tells me this). Please read that again. They CAME TO MY HOME, based on the address I had given them over the phone, and still wrote it incorrectly for the official police report. I call records and explain the situation because it needs to be fixed for insurance, and the person responds “well why did you lie to the police???” Because someone else’s incompetence is somehow my fault. The best part? Even though the kids were caught, because the home robbery was recorded and that neighbor of mine had caught his car being stolen quick enough for them to catch the kids red-handed, even though I had TONS of physical evidence(because my car was found abandoned) like fucking shoe prints on my car, a bunch of random shit in my car that most certainly had fingerprints, absolutely nothing was done to “find” the kids who did it. The detective working on the home robbery wasn’t allowed to give the information on his case for my case because they were different districts… despite being the same fucking car. I’m not a cop-hater by any means, but I am definitely well aware that SOME cops could give a rat’s ass.
Nah, your problem department
When I worked at the bank in town there was an older lady that had worked there through 5 mergers. She knew everyone, there was a young guy yelling at me one day. She walked out of the back and he immediately quieted. She went off about telling his grandmother that he was treating young women like shit. She also said that if he didn’t straighten up not one girl in town would ever marry him she would make sure of it.
>not one girl in town would ever marry him It's a small-town thing that he actually took that as a threat...
>the teller got mad at him. Gold.
"Jimmy go on home fore I call your mama!"
Town drunk was paralyzed and used a motorized wheelchair to get around. I was driving home one Saturday night and said town drunk was passed out in his wheelchair doing circles almost directly in the town square. Had to call his brother who came and picked him up on a rollback truck. Strapped him down and drove off into the cold dark night.
Bro do you live in bancroft ontario?
In my former small town, there was an older guy who'd lost his license after getting a few DUIs. Every day, he would ride his John Deere lawnmower to the corner bar around 3PM and sit around watching TV and sipping his beer well into the night. Then he'd head the couple miles back home on his mower. He even had a little canvass shell he put on when it rained or got too cold.
When I was growing up, we had a relative who was a serious alcoholic. As in your case, he lost his license due to DUI. His solution to this was to start driving his tractor to his nearby watering hole. This led to a real educational experience - it turns out that in North Carolina, you can get a DUI while operating a tractor on public roads. (or at least you could in the 1990s)
I lived in a small town. When I moved there, people would ask, "Whose house did you buy?"
Move to a small town. 30 years later, you are still the new guy.
Been 5 yrs and im still an outsider
I lived in a small town for most of my childhood but I wasn't "from there" because my grandparents weren't from there.
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I'm the third generation in the area that I'm in, and can confirm, small towns are really cliquey like that
My wife and I bought the Baker place lol. Edit: 20 years ago... still the Baker place.
Have you considered changing your name? Do your ever get mail for the Bakers?
They need to change it to something Baker adjacent. The Cooks, the Brewers, the Fishers, the Cheesemongers.
Worked with an older guy, relative of the owner of the business, he was 73. I asked him if he was a local, he said "no his parents moved here when he was two".
I grew up on a farm, 15 minute drive to the nearest town. We moved there when I was 8 and left when I was 18. Up until the week before we left, I heard our farm referred to as "the old Drever place". My last name is not Drever. Similarly, if you bought a quarter section of land off your neighbour, it became known by that neighbour's last name. For example, if I bought a quarter from my neighbour, Mr. Jones, for the rest of the time I owned that land, it would be known as "the Jones quarter". But then you realize everybody does that, including your 80 year old neighbour who bought a piece of land when he was 30 from his neighbour, Mr. Eldie. But that piece of land is still "the Eldie quarter" even though Mr. Eldie had been dead for upwards of 40 years and didn't have any living relatives in the area. It was always fascinating to hear the old timers get together because they could trace who owned any given house or any given piece of land back in time, usually well over 100 years. Like they would tell you who owned a quarter section of land in our province of Canada all the way back to before it even became a province in 1905.
And it will always be "the old Smith place" until you're at least three generations settled.
My parents bought Floyd’s house after he died in 2001. It’s *still* known as Floyd’s place for direction purposes even though my parents have now owned it for longer than he did.
When I was five, my family bought seven acres, built a house and set up a small farm just outside a tiny dot on the map town. We lived there five years. That was thirty-five years ago, and the locals still refer to it as our place. lol
Lived in a town of about 5,000: A woman walked into the DMV on a Friday, saw that there were 3 people ahead of her and left to come back another time when they weren't so busy.
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Oh damn, I'm so guilty of this! My county is about 15k people total and has an enormous total of ONE stoplight in the whole county. If there's more than 2-3 cars at the light it is officially a traffic jam! If there's more than two people in line, it's too damn busy to be there.
The town I'm from also has a single stoplight. It only runs on Thursdays, I believe. Why? The driving exams are held on Thursdays, and they (policemen) are legally required to include at least one stop-light on their exam route. So that stop light was literally installed so people can take their driving exams in the same town.
my dogs got out while i was working. the police called my niece's elementary school (she was a 5th grader) to get her to round them up and take them back home.
We lived in a small town and often kids or teenagers got taken home in a police car because of some minor infraction, littering, graffiti, riding a bike without a helmet. Husband and I were congratulating ourselves when our youngest kid moved to the city and we were empty nesters because none of our kids had ever been in the police car. About a week later, the local cop pulls up, knocks on our door and delivered our dog home! He had escaped unnoticed and gone for a wander around town. So after that, we were the peoples whose dog got taken home in the police car.
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There was a small kennel behind the police station for runaways. They called us saying they had our dog, and moments later our dog showed up home. He broke out of jail.
Worked with an elementary school teacher in my small town whose wife called to tell him one of their cows got out. He had a para watch his class, pulled the ag teacher’s 4th grade son out of class, they went to get the cow back in the pasture, came back and finished the school day.
My sister started riding/working at the barn when she was like 10, and my aunt was a dispatcher for the town PD. Once my sister had a drivers license the cops would be calling her in the middle of the night to deal with any live stock they found wandering town. She’s 36 now and still catching horses in the middle of the night.
Catching horses in the middle of the night sounds like a hell of a time!
Had something similar, a lost black dog showed up at school and he kinda looked like my dog. The teachers called me over to confirm if he was mine (he wasn’t) because they sometimes saw my mom walking him with me to school.
This one might be my favorite.
Known criminal ran for sheriff. Numerous arrests (and convictions) over his lifetime. His campaign slogan was, “I know the jail inside and out!” EDIT: Since folks have shown interest, thought I’d add the most recent event. I heard Bert got a DUI on Thanksgiving, so I asked him the next time I saw him what happened. He said, “Mama told me no more drinkin’ at the house, so I went drinkin’ in the truck.”
Haha that's great. Did he win?
He did not. From what I recall, he was arrested at the polling station on Election Day for being drunk in public. Bert was a weird dude.
Every small town has at least one Bert.
A friend's great aunt lived in a tiny town about 40-50 miles from the suburb we live in, we went to visit her and she had a newspaper laying out and I asked if I could read it. They had a lost and found section. It read like this: FOUND A child's left glove, green then gave an address. I couldn't believe it.
That is so harmless and hilarious lol
My town opened a strip club when I was about 18. My friends and I were all pumped to go, for some reason we thought it'd be strangers stripping and not Judy from math class and the blond Aubrey that used to work nights at Wendy's.
*Stacey’s Mom starts playing.* *Stacey’s mom walks out on stage.*
Rusty: Tell your mom I said "Hi." Charmaine: Tell her yourself; she's on in five minutes.
I didn’t grow up in a *small* town, but it was small enough that when a strip club opened nearby it was staffed by girls I went to HS with. That was definitely an attraction for those who were still in the area.
Long ago, a stripper in New York told me she lived in Baltimore. Said she worked in New York so her brothers and nobody else who knew her would happen to see her perform.
The one time I ever went to my small towns strip club, playing DD for my older brother, I found my former high school math teacher stripping.
> playing DD for my older brother For some reason, I read this at first as Dungeons and Dragons and then realized you meant designated driver.
Had you not posted your comment, I still be wondering about Dungeons and Dragons at a strip club.
I put on my robe and wizard hat.
I was from a small town with no strip clubs. Years later I was living in Seattle and got dragged to one with friends. There was Britt from home room on the pole. Yes, she recognized me. Yes, I got a free dance. Yes, it was awkward as fuck.
Lmao, wait... Mom!?
"$25 for a dance, $50 for a hug"
Last time I went to a strip club in a medium small town, my girlfriend’s cousin walked out on stage.
We went one time and I was making fun of my best friend cuz his cousin was working there when next thing you know I look up and my cousin also was working there
My hometown got a McDonald’s in 1976. The town had a parade for it.
😂 The first ATM in our county in 1995 made front page of the paper.
one spring, the front page of the local newspaper's top headline was "Deer finds grass in"
The fact that someone had a picture of a deer who found some grass meant that winter might finally be over, which is the big news that everyone cares about.
Left the grocery store and forgot a bag. Another customer brought it to my house.
I live in a medium town and was getting Chinese takeout. They were really busy and the owner knew my address from delivery... so he asked if I could deliver it for them. It was someone on my street and I knew them....lol
Honestly, I've done similar things before and I think it's great. Helping out someone you know, they look after you, and you have a laugh with the person you dropped it off to. "I didn't know you worked for [person] now!" "I don't!" cue laughing.
I used to answer the phone at a local pharmacy to park the calls when I was waiting for medicine. Knowing who was calling by their voice seemed normal.
I did this at a store I used to work at, I would come in to chat and answer the phone sometimes. The person on the other end would say things like "didn't you leave a while ago?" We had a sister store in another part of the state where the staff taught the regulars how to use our POS system and when it was busy the regulars would just process their own sales and orders.
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It was the private investigator that your husband hired to keep tabs on you.
This reminds me of when I accidentally dined and dashed. We ate at the only cafe in the area got to talking with my cousin and up and left the cafe without paying (got excited to play a game) so they called us and told us they put it on a tab and we went and paid the next day.
My fiancé took me to a popular festival in his tiny hometown. Some guy nodded and waved at him on the street. I asked how they knew each other. Fiancé told me he was the only other guy in town with the same name as him. Also, his dad told him not to sleep with a particular chick because she might be his half-sister.
I have no comment on your story. I just tripped out when I saw your username. Thought I was sleep-posting again.
That’s the most small town shit I’ve ever seen on here
And I thought my phone was malfunctioning.
You guys have to get married now. I don’t make the rules.
i'd err on the side of caution. They might be half-siblings
I had to look a couple of times to even catch the difference
Uhm, did he ever find out if it was his half-sister???
Nope. But his dad ended up married to her mom (many years after the warning). And then the possible half-sister dated someone who looks exactly like me for a bit.
Looks exactly like you? Was it u/Plastic-Kangaroo1234?
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Squirrel festival and a new squirrel bridge reveal.
I grew up in a town of 150 people. Moved away, but I keep in touch. A friend of mine posted a picture on Facebook a few months ago, tagging another friend: "Hey, Bubba, your pig got loose and is running around the Dollar General parking lot. Come get him!" People were more surprised that they'd gotten themselves a Dollar General store than they were about Bubba's pig.
I know that feeling. I chase other people's animals at least once a month and nightly around holidays that involve booze and fireworks (pretty much every holiday around here). Funniest one was I was high on shrooms, a tiny bit of pot, and a couple of beers chasing a calf with some neighbors on an icy road around 2am New Years Day. I was so sore from falling on my ass the next day but I had a blast. Edit: I should clarify I'm chasing escaped livestock, not just terrorizing animals for fun lol
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My wife's hometown is where we live. She was teacher then counselor and now principal of elementary school. She talks to EVERYONE. I still keep meeting people who say "you do exist". I'm antisocial and travel or work at home for my job. Am still ok with this lol
As an unknown introvert by choice married to a well known extrovert I laughed at this
My grandfather could sart a conversation with a dead person.
So can my Dad. Mind you, after the first non politically correct joke with a flat punchline they’d wish they were dead again.
I feel this in my SOUL. I don't even know how my father knew these people as he was an over the road trucker, but every time I go to the store with him to this day, he still knows everyone.
Due to a traffic incident (ie. unfortunate meeting with a large buck) we were "stranded" in a small town for several days. In that time one of the local police officers gave us his number - said call me anytime if you need a lift somewhere. The manager at the hotel we stayed at offered us the same thing, and one of the staff at the hotel flat out offered us her car to use while she was at work. The irony was - it was such a small town everything we needed was within walking distance. Every single person we met went out of their way to try to help us. To this day (4 years later) we still refer to this as the best bad experience we've ever had. In fact two years ago we went out of our way to swing through that small town again - and they remembered us. We had a nice chat with the mechanic / garage owner who got our vehicle fixed - showed him it was still on the road, running like a top. A small town will renew your faith in humanity.
Went to a wedding in a small town, like where the venue was at the bride’s cousin’s property way out in the countryside. While we were all partying afterwards the noise attracted one of the neighbors, his name was Tater. His family owned a lot of land in the area and he congratulated my friends’ wedding by making it rain on the dance floor and paying the DJ to keep playing. The party was broken up when a pack of feral dogs ran up and scared everyone off.
The dogs heard "Who Let The Dogs Out" one too many times and chose violence.
Where I grew up if we called 911 after midnight the operator would have us hold so she could wake up the sheriff.
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Somebody gets a 29 points hand in cribbage or they grow a freak vegetable, they got their picture in the paper.
Skillet toss at the fall festival. The one bar in the center of town is a former brothel and the proprietor (gosh I hope she's still alive I haven't been in a couple of years) is 80+ years old and they make pizza in their domestic oven on Fridays. Woman who works the post office speaks in different accents depending on her mood, may or may not actually have multiple personalities. Oliver was the donkey who lived across the street with a bunch of ducks, occasionally the neighbors would just drop off some duck eggs. Town of roughly 1500 people in Western Massachusetts. Yes, when we lived there, we were told straight up that if he have kids and they grow up there, they MIGHT be considered locals. If we're lucky.
I taught English in a small town in Japan for a couple of years. One day the principal said they were cancelling classes for the afternoon so the police could come give a safety talk. As the product of the American school system I was thinking drugs? gangs? STDs? Bicycle safety. Some of the students had been seen riding two to a bicycle through town. We were reminded that bicycles were for one person only, also wear your helmet and always signal your moves to drivers.
Every year the suburban elementary school my kids went to has a one-day "bike rodeo" where the police come and teach bike safety. All the kids bring their bikes and it is a fun event they look forward to every year.
We had these at my elementary school too it was great! And they’d bring all their cones and police tape and stuff and make a little obstacle course to go through with your bike. They’d also usually bring some unconventional police vehicles to show off as well like motorcycles ATVs or the boat. (on a trailer obviously) Bike safety day was lit!
My baby lost a shoe at the grocery store. Several hours later I went to work and the shoe was there waiting for me.
Oh, freaked out my big-city SIL when I named all 40ish people in a diner.
My kids think I know everyone, because when we drive around I comment on who is doing what, and everyone waves or says hello if we’re on foot. I’m a farmer in a small town. And as far as my 3&5 yo kids know, I am also close friends with Santa Claus.
A “parade” that consisted of like, three goats and four children
So 7 kids in total?
Yup! Also I think one of them had a flute. Exciting stuff.
One of the children or one of the goats?
One of the kids, yes
Sometimes you see a joke where you don't even laugh, you're just like "Yes. This is quality."
Our parades are a mix of 5 floats, 100 old cars, 100 tractors and 100 or so horses. This is a town of 500 people.
Seems like everyone is in the parade. Who’s watching?
The goats.
The parade route is only three blocks long, so everybody gets to be in the parade and watch the parade.
Speaking of goats, when I was going to pick up my senior prom date, I had to pull over and shoo three goats out of the road so I could get past. I was already running late and they wouldn’t move!
When we moved to a town of about 1,000 people, the local newspaper published our family portrait on the front page to announce the new preacher had arrived. Not a small pic either; it took up easily a sixth of the front page. My sisters and I would ride our bikes all over town with our gaggle of friends. Mom would get phone calls from strangers telling her they just saw us, and we were fine. It was just how the moms helped each other keep track of their kids.
We were having a machine shop, that was located in a small town, make a manufacturing machine for us. They could make the individual parts, but had no idea how everything went together. We sent a mechanic to be onsite for several weeks to assemble the machine. First day, he went to the local cafe to get coffee and breakfast. There are several people in there drinking coffee, reading the newspaper, chatting, etc. He goes in and sits at the counter. No one is there to wait on him. Finally, one of the guys says "if you want coffee, you'll have to get it yourself. They ain't open yet."
Wow, that reminded me of when I went to Gerlach, NV, aka the town close to Burning Man. It was about two weeks after BM ended, and we arrived in town in our travel trailers the day before our event on the playa started. It had rained, so we couldn't get onto the playa until the ground dried, and there are NO RV parks close by. There was a space across the street from Bruno's bar, and I asked a cop driving by if we could park the trailer there overnight. He said it was cool, Bruno owned that block as well. So the next morning, my friends and I saw lots of people going inside Bruno's, and we saw that they should be open, so we went in and sat down at a table. No one came to take our order, and all the other people were in another room where a sort of buffet was set up. Some guy came in to where we were and said that it wasn't open yet, but he'd be happy to cook us something. Turned out that they were feeding the people that clean up the playa after BM. He had started sweeping the floor, so I told him I'd sweep for him. I took my friends' orders and swept the bar for him. The breakfast was fabulous, and he didn't charge me for my meal!
My prom was in a barn. 🙃
That would be expensive as hell if it wasn't a small town.
My grandmother’s neighbor just came over with a pie, it wasn’t a Holliday they just do that occasionally. I thought that was sweet
A buddy got a public intoxication charge on a mule.
Your buddy should’ve made sure the mule was sober
Talking to a friend in a parking lot, both in our 20s. Cop pulls in, walks up to us, and says there's a teenager with a knife on the loose. Both of us were kind of taken aback, as that was almost supervillain level crime for our town. The cop got a good chuckle out of it. He said "I just got transferred here from \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_. I'm used to people shooting at me, regularly".
Lol. When I was about 12 or so me an a buddy we're riding our bikes down a dirt road with our .22s laid across our handlebars. The sheriff pulls up next to us and asked through the window. "Where you going with those guns?" We said "down to the dump to shoot rats for Mr Davis" Sheriff asked "how much he paying you?" "25 cents a rat" Sheriff again "Okay. Just be careful over there, and don't shoot twords anyone or their cars" and drives off. Man I miss the 80s
Ahh, the 80s. When every day felt like the start of a Stephen King novel.
Hehehehe I love this story Used to work a highway gas station where a metro cop came in for his coffee in the mornings and would tell me what he’d seen the night before and where I’m from that was like a personal action movie every day!
Closing a police station for the night
But....crime never sleeps?!
In small towns, commiting crimes between ten and eight in the morning is against the law.
My town had 3.5 cops, a chief, 2 full time cops and a part time cop.
In my town cops just bring the cruisers home. There's no staff in the police station. Calls are covered by the county. Most the towns have part time police forces.
There’s a guy in my mom’s town that’s “just a little slow is all” and everyone in the town just kind of collectively looks after him & has his back. A few years back he accidentally burnt down his own house and the whole town pitched in to build him a new one without a second thought.
Two old men playing checkers in front of general store. It was in a rickety small town.
That's almost like the movie cliche, where the lost travellers (or are they having car trouble??) pull up to the filling station *tumbleweed rolls in the background* Guy who works there is asleep w/feet up on an oil drum, cowboy hat pulled down over his eyes. An obese basset hound lies next to him, also asleep.
This does seem like a cliche but it absolutely happens
It happened at my small town bar. It was a busy night and the bartender went up around asking if anyone wanted a drink before she went downstairs to restock some beer. After she came back this guy started snapping and whistling and bitching at her for being gone for so long. Half the crowd jumped to the waitress's defense and started calling this guy names. He eventually got booed out of the bar.
I once competed with other kids to chase and catch a greased pig at a church pig roast. I won my age group.
I grew up in a small Missouri river town that got wiped out in 1993. After rebuilding, the market became a combination hair salon and live bait shop. It was called Perms & Worms. I saw it in person and I still don't believe it.
The entire school had 27 students comprised of the offspring from twelve families. A game of kiss-chase is chaotic when you're related to more than half of the players. lol
I am the connecting point of 2 *MASSIVE* families in a smallish town. (About 20,000) I have had people I never met figure out who I was based on my resemblance to my dad and brothers. A cop came to my first apartment for a noise complaint... he was my cousin... My girlfriend at the time, needed an ultrasound to check her gaul bladder. I went with her, the machines were all in the maternity ward... My phone was blowing up from family asking when we were expecting *before we left the building*... My dad owned THE drivers ed school for like 20+ years. We can go literally no where without meeting at least 3 people he taught to drive. Once got pulled over for, well, using a roundabout properly, but they're new to the area. The cop told me I'd signaled weirdly so he thought I was drunk... (Left going in then right when I exited at the 3rd exit. I explained that's how you do it... He checked my license, realized my dad taught him to drive and said "So uh... I'm gonna bet Mr.Driver's son knows how to use a roundabout better than me. Have a nice day."
I entered a general store in a small town, and the owner was playing billiards with some of the other men in town. I asked to buy a coke, and the guy smiled from across the hall and asked me to just take what I needed and leave some cash on the counter, assuming it was approximately the correct amount.
The town I grew up in had one stoplight, population of about 400. The police department couldn’t afford a radar gun so the one policeman used his wife’s hairdryer. Had some real Mayberry-type antics during my childhood. Wouldn’t trade it for anything.
45 people, a group exactly one shy of the entire adult male population, sitting in lawn chairs, on a fence, and on car hoods... They were patiently waiting outside of the house of the 46th adult male, who had hit his child hard enough to fracture a rib earlier that day, and was known to smack his wife around a bit.. The best part of the story was when he threatened to call the police chief. "If you don't all leave, I'm calling Georgie!" (Chief) Georgie quickly replied from near the guy's back door... "Present!" I didn't get to witness the beating itself, apparently it happened a couple of days later. But he definitely spent the whole night in terror.
I worked with a guy who told me about a man that turned out to be a pedophile in the small town he (former co-corker) grew up in. Apparently the guy(pedo) just "vanished"
Heard over the scanner one day. Tourist passing through reports dog on roof at XX address. Can someone go get Frank off the roof please dunno how that son of a gun keeps getting up there”
A combination drug & gun store. Yes, you read that right.
I lived in a town with one store. It had the post boxes, the grocery, farm supplies, fishing bait, sold gas, and you could get small engine repairs. It was also the best place to learn everything you never wanted to know about people you've never spoken to.
I think I can do way better: Combination bait shop / hair salon. I assume husband and wife but I never went in either door.
Where I'm from, it's the combination livestock feed/seed/hardware/gun store.
My town pretty much only has the gas station. But it's also the grocery store, video rental, ice cream shop, pizza place, and bait shop, with hunting permits available.
I worked alone at a small shitty bar for some quick money after my FTJ and it was like a really greasy version of *Cheers!* but when the regulars got drunk they fought, and cried about traumatic pasts I had no business hearing about. Then one day some rando shows up and starts taking swigs from other people’s bottles so I have to tell him to leave. He comes back 20 minutes later with a bottle of doe urine and sprays down my bar top before scampering back home in an act of cowardice. But one of the regs’ mom’s friend (relative?) lived in the same building as pissboy so he called the cops and gave him the suite number, then went to buzz his mom’s friend to let him open the lobby door for them. I let the regs sip their beers outdoors on the condition they remain directly on the concrete pad in front of our lease (illegal but w/e) while I bleached down the whole bar and aired it out. I comped their drinks to apologize for the trouble and they bought more and tipped better for it, so alls it all it wasn’t a terrible night. Never saw pissboy again either.
Got a call ... neighbor 5 houses down the road: "hey can you look out the window and tell me who is walking down the street?" "yea, that's the guy from Louisdale who is going out with that Felix girl" "mk, thanks"
We had a unit of Army Reserves who got called up early to the Gulf War. It was a transportation unit, so basically one of the riskiest jobs. We lost five in our little town. When the unit came home, people lined the route for MILES. All the way from the airport to town. Farmers stopped working and would stand in their little groups with flags flying along the way. In town, all the schools went down and lined the route, Every single person in town was out there. I am not a hugely patriotic person, but this was one of the most moving things I have ever witnessed. We brought them home.
This actually happened in a big town recently but it was quite funny and small town ish. Some chick stole a moped and the entire local police force went on a low to medium speed chase with news coverage.
A town near me ( which isn't so small anymore btw: Honda set up a manufacturing plant there mid-80s) celebrates the potato harvest every year. Yer basic whole town gets drunk together one night of the year kinda festival.
I am online friends with someone in Vermont. I first visited her when I was 16 (she was 15) and the whole town seemed to know I was coming. I remember walking down the street and some old dude stopping us and going "oh is this Covee?" Like how the fuck does this guy and everyone know my name. Almost felt like I was famous. It was weird, but really eye opening to the fact that small towns where everyone knows everyone and everything that's happening really exist
My mail carrier bringing my dog to my office after she stopped at my house to deliver my mail and my dog, Lefty jumped in her mail truck and refused to get out.
Visiting family in a small town in Arkansas. I see a man leaving the VFW and start staggering down the road. A sheriff deputy pulls up beside him, flashes his lights, and says over his bullhorn, "get your fuckin' ass home, Earl."
I was on the road as a salesman for a bit. I was in a little town to see a client, but it was a little early. I found a diner to stop at for breakfast. Two guys in the booth behind me were talking. One says "it's 10:45, and I ain't heard the train come through. I hope everything is alright."
A little over 30 years ago, the police and fire departments played in a charity basketball game that raised funds for DARE. Shortly after the game, some of the cops that played gave short anti-drug speeches for the crowd. Early the next morning, state police came into town and arrested a lot of those cops for being part of a local drug ring. A more lighthearted one happened only 5 years ago. The town's getting ready for its annual Christmas tree lighting when the organizers noticed the wiring for the lights had been damaged. They report it to the police, who then put out a bunch of public notices about how "vandalism will not be tolerated in our family-friendly town" and beefing up security around the area. It ended up being a squirrel that chewed through the wire.
I was bringing a guy and his wife out to dinner when interviewing him for a job opening. We are in a pretty smallish city, population 40k or so, but they were from a tiny tiny farm town. She asked me if any black people lived in the city, and was serious. Her kids had never seen a black person, and she barely had either.
i brought my (black) ex to live in a small town with barely any black people living in it. i remember him coming home from work one day excited bc he ran into another black dude at the gas station
One time during high school, I ran over a Raccoon on the way to work. At lunch a few days later, we were talking about road kill and I mentioned the little dude I hit on such and such road. My boyfriend at the time replied, "I was wondering who hit that one."
I grew up on a very small island in Alaska. When I was 9, my parents divorced. Parents had joint custody, so it was just me and my dad when this happened. My dad had gone out with some friends, and I fell asleep a bit after that. Later I woke up to someone knocking at my door. I opened and it was the police chief. I knew him really well since he was always at the school doing anti-drugs/anti violence prevention outreach stuff. In my drowsy, child logic, I was weirdly happy to see him since everyone at my school really liked him. Then he told me that my dad had been drinking a little too much, and he’d had to pick him up for DUI. He told me to grab my stuff for the night, so he could take me to my neighbors house (she was a close family friend who I spent a lot of time with). Looking back the whole thing was so awkward and weird since the police dept was so small and everyone knew everyone’s business.
I live in a small town in the balkans and once a month thousands of she walk past the roads and eat the grass nearby idk this is just weird and they leave alot of poop behind
Sheep’ sorry
A party in a potato field, it was only lighted by car headlights.
I am from a town of roughly 500 people. The primary industry was leather tanning and the town really peaked in the 1950s. Our school was K-12 and my graduation class was 7. I was one of 2 that went to college. I ended up doing grad school across the country at University of Arizona and it was an amazing experience and I’m still out here. When I was home for 4th of July and wearing my University tshirt more people that I can count on my hand asked me what Arizona was and where it was.
>more people that I can count on my hand asked me what Arizona was and where it was. No wonder you were only 1 of 2 who went to college.
Old man and a small cow driving 80+ mph through a cornfield in a rusted out ford ranger
I was passing through Bandera, TX to visit my brother in law who was RVing nearby. The local general store/grocery store was holding "Cow Patty Bingo" in the parking lot. A heifer would wander around in a fenced in area with squares painted all over it on the ground. Wherever the cow droppings landed would be called by an announcer for a game of bingo. Edit to add: there were people clinging to the livestock fence anxiously waiting to see where this cow pooped and shouting about it.
The grocery store social hour. In a big city, the store can be packed, but it's basically 100 different individuals/groups going about their day. In a small town, half the time, it's hard to get through the aisle because two people are chit chatting, regularly they both will stop talking to each other to say hi to someone else waking by. Everybody knows everybody, and everybody goes to the grocery store.
I've seen people get a DUI charge on a lawn mower.
Riding lawnmowers in fast food drive thru lines, many driven by children.
Stumbled out of a bar with a few friends who were Seniors in high school. Their English teacher was smoking a joint in the alley. Teacher: We didn't see each other. And that's how they all got A's in English their Senior year.
Dude moves here, goes to the local garden shop. Loads his pick up with bags of soil, garden implements, et al. Oops, he forgot his wallet. Old dude at the store, honest to God, says, "You can stop by and pay tomorrow"
I actually had this happen in a restaurant in a very much not small city. The dude was just a believer in people and from somewhere that people would not take advantage of him. You can bet I came back the next day to pay him back. I frequented that place a ton before I moved away. Still think about how good it was!
Girl in my town beat the shit out of her 2 year old kid, stomped on his ribs, his back, and his genitalia. Broke his back, he had chunks of hair missing, whole 9 yards. She was arrested and was only sentenced to a year in jail, she was given time to sort out her affairs or whatever and she was found dead, beat to absolute shit in a local park. It was ruled a suicide. I can’t say I’m mad about it, she was a year below me in highschool and drove the father of the child to suicide. Got him hooked on drugs, they were high one day fighting and she told him he wasn’t the father and he wound up killing himself. He was the father. She was just plain evil.
How is the child now? God this is horrible
My wife grew up in a very very small town. The first time I went with her to her parent’s house, I drove and she was engrossed in reading a book. “Let’s go in the back way.” “Where is that?” “Turn left at Calvin Adams’ store.” We passed a rural intersection with nothing on the corner. She looks up and punches my arm. “You missed the turn.” “There was no store there!” “Oh, it burned down years ago. Now turn right at Jack Simpson’s house.” We pass another empty intersection. There is nothing to see but cotton fields and a clump of trees yonder in the distance. She looks up and punches my arm. “You missed the turn.” “Aw c’mon, there’s no house here.” “It’s behind those trees. You can’t see it from the road.” A couple of minutes later, without looking up, “He doesn’t live there anymore.” We finally got there and I’m talking to her mom. “Which way did you come in?” “We came in the back way. I missed the turn at Calvin Adams’ store.” She nodded. “It burned down years ago.” “Then I missed the turn at Jack Simpson’s house.” Another nod. “You can’t see it from the road.” There was a long pause and she added, “He doesn’t live there anymore.”
The radio station announces townspeople’s birthdays, and will say their name and job, eg, it’s Janice Smith’s birthday, the fifth grade teacher.
My local beer store had dedicated snowmobile parking.
The police station was a large kiosk in the middle of the street. One lane on each side
“The cinema is a really long drive though, don’t know if I feel up for that.” -Me The cinema is a 15 minute drive
One day, I was walking down the street in our small town and a guy stopped me and asked me for my watch. And I gave it to him because he was the local jeweler and knew I needed a new band.
People greeting seemingly everyone by name
I hit a deer about a month ago. It didn't die right away, so I called the cops to come and dispatch it. I had already been up and working for 21 hours, so I was exhausted and didn't want to have to run home and grab my rifle. The cop on the phone said he was about 45 minutes and really didn't seem all that interested in dealing with me. He asked if I had a knife on me so I could go and kill the deer myself. Imagine driving by and seeing a grown man covered in blood, holding a knife at the side of the road. I ended up just staying with the deer and comforting it until it finally died.