Country Mouse or City Mouse ?

[Dawg52]

I grew up in a big city baby! A town of 40k. A nice size actually. Big enough to have some variety, but a slow lifestyle. I sometimes see myself buying a small house in the country, but that usually comes with a lot of grass to mow.

[freebird5825]

I do enjoy the country for many reasons. I do see it becoming undoable in terms of yard and house maintenance and access to better medical facilities if necessary, further down the road.
As much as I complain about the snow and lack of culture, it is an easy peaceful life. My perspective has transformed radically since I FIREd. I never had the time to get involved in the community and felt a bit detached. I am changing that in small ways.
I am a transplant here in East Nowhere, but after 29 years I should be almost a "local". Never will be a native...but w*rking on becoming a local fits well.
The true natives are very friendly here. I think I am still a bit of a novelty to them. Lots of hard w*rking folks, many are entrepreneurs in the trades and family businesses. Good stuff!

[haha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound We must admit that we can never "go home" again, or rather that we do not want to.

Amen! The other day I thought a little about which of my old homes I would willing to return to for an extended time.

Not many! If I could afford a nice apartment at the beach, LA would be #1. New York second. That is about it for me. I liked living in SF/Berkeley, but in my ranking it is inferior to LA because of beach.

NYExpat may have a great lower cost substitute in Lima, but I have never been there so I don't really know.

Ha

[freebird5825]

I found this neat video from my original hometown. I used to walk my dogs along the river where the large marina is shown at the end of the video. The marina did not exist when I was living there, just open water.
Town of Stony Point Video Tour

Am I feeling nostalgic? Getting sappy?

[CuppaJoe]

Quote:

Originally Posted by freebird5825 .... Am I feeling nostalgic? Getting sappy?

Yeah, hey, is that Tom Hanks running across the bridge?

[Khan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CuppaJoe The cows can't go home again, either. There's a WalMart in the pasture and the woods where they went sometimes to crossover into our yard now has condos and roads. I believe the farmhouse was moved to another location, silos are all gone.

YouTube - Don't It Make You Want to Go Home - Joe South - 1969

[NW-Bound]

Though I didn't grow up in a rural area, and in fact have not been to West Virginia, I liked this song. I was thinking about posting this in the 70s thread, but this is a good spot too.

YouTube - Country Roads - John Denver

[CuppaJoe]

Thanks for that song, Khan, love the line, “the river don’t flow.” Progress drained the creek that was such an iconic barrier into the woods in the muddy season. But “there’s no there there” doesn’t quite apply (yet), I can still check into a hotel and visit neighbors who never left and always give me a tour out into the country roads, top down.

[Goonie]

Still live in the same ol' small town...in the same ol' house that's been in the family for nearly 100 years. The population is dang near the same as it was 50 years ago...within about 100-200 people...it's currently about 18K. Most everybody knows everybody else....and if they don't know them, they know someone who does! Ain't too many secrets around these parts!

Neighbors watch out for one another, and help each other whenever possible. We share stories, and garden produce across the fence, as well as freshly cleaned fish and freshly butchered wild game...even dinner leftovers once in a while! When one of the neighbors goes on a trip, all the rest keep an eye on there house and property for them, and take in their mail and do 'walk throughs' for them.

Chicago, Rockford, and the Quad-Cities are all about an hour and a half drive away, so we get to them fairly often We used to get to Chicago more often in the earlier years when we still had train service...2 morning trains in and 2 evening trains out...everyday!

I absolutely love NYC and LA, and like Chicago pretty well also, but as the old theme song said....."Green Acres is the place to be...."!

[W2R]

Goonie, welcome back! It's good to see you here. I am looking forward to hearing about how you have been and what you have been up to.

[CuppaJoe]

Hey, there, Goonie, saw you over on the other thread and thought, "I wonder if Goonie is a city or a country mouse?" Duh, of course, you are both. Good to see you back.

[ziggy29]

Lived in cities and suburbs all my life until three years ago. Now I don't think I could ever live in the city again. Well, I could, but I'd be longing for small towns and rural areas the whole time...

[Walt34]

I grew up in suburbia just north of Washington, DC. It used to be a nice place to live, with a small town feel to it and close to the large city. When I was going to the community college the 10-mile drive took about 20 minutes. Now it's a good hour at 8:00 AM. There now are traffic jams extending for miles at 3:00 AM for the least little fender-bender. I found myself ordering stuff online because that was easier than driving five miles in 45 minutes to get to a store, and the only practical time to get groceries was before 8:00 AM on Sunday. No thanks!

Now we don't have to plan our everyday lives around traffic, and although we live in a golf course community neither plays the game. (DW liked the house, so....) Just the quality of life is so much better! And yes, in the spring we can smell the manure that's being spread on some nearby fields. That can be a good or bad thing depending one one's preferences.

[freebird5825]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Walt34 ...And yes, in the spring we can smell the manure that's being spread on some nearby fields. That can be a good or bad thing depending one one's preferences.

Just yesterday I was treated to the simultaneous aromas of skunk and fresh manure. Mmmmmmmmmmmm...
Seeing the "honey wagon" in the fields nearby never fails to crack me up. Something about the trajectory of the manure and my general attitude about life. Fling it strong and long !

[Buckeye]

I grew up within the city limits of Seattle and all the places I've moved to have been cities except for this stop in corn country. My grandparents had an apple orchard for many years in the Okanagan Valley and we would visit for a month or two in the summer to get a break from the city.

The rural setting has really grown on me over the last 5 years. We live in a subdivision in a little town so we don't have lots of land to maintain but I get to enjoy the lack of traffic. Other than when the train hits its whistle as it goes through town, it's quiet and there's lots of corn and soybeans to look at instead of signage. Reputation is extremely important.

I don't miss work but I do miss stopping along the road, rolling down the window, mooing at the cows and having them come over to the fence for a chat. We are heading back to the city but hopefully the Gulf will give me that feeling of space I've grown to enjoy here in corn country.

[kumquat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by freebird5825 J Seeing the "honey wagon" in the fields

We called them "political machines"

[freebird5825]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kumquat We called them "political machines"

I pray that I never get so bored I start videotaping things like this.

YouTube - Chobe Hippo Honey wagon

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by freebird5825 I am curious to see how different the lifestyle in the country and city and in between population density areas are. Country Mouse - my town is so small that the residents are asked to help out the local volunteer fire department by removing deep snow piled up around the fire hydrants in the winter.

Murrysville, a small town outside Pittsburgh. One of those places you'd ride your bike or walk anywhere even when still in elementary school. Sometime during the late 19th or early 20th century residents planted evergreen trees on a ridge spelling out the town's name. Parents were founding members of the community swimming pool.

Our first house had an oil furnace that must've rusted through its fuel tank-- one day we returned home to find the basement (with its dirt floor) a couple inches deep in fuel oil. That was pretty exciting for a five-year-old, but the incident inspired Mom to have Dad upgrade to a newer home closer to the school complex-- where the "expensive" homes were.

Winters were cold & snowy in that part of PA. Our firefighters used to flood their parking lot every winter to start up the town's ice rink, and I'm pretty sure that lasted until March. One year we shoveled enough snow off our driveway to make a pile over nine feet high that didn't melt until April. Another year we had so many snow days of school cancellations that high-school seniors started attending summer classes at Penn State before they'd formally graduated from HS. They actually had to drive back home their second weekend for the HS graduation ceremony.

I've spent a winter in Ballston Spa, NY working shifts at the Navy's nuclear plants. One brisk morning after a thrilling midwatch (NOT) we came out to the parking lot to find that it was 20 below zero and only one vehicle battery had the cold cranking amps to start its engine. The poor guy circled the lot from one set of jumper cables to the next, me included, until we'd jumpstarted a critical mass (so to speak) of cars to get everyone going. The following month, when it got really cold, my car's plastic steering wheel brittle-fractured.

Hawaii no ka oi...

[bbbamI]

I imagine for the rest of my life, I'll be a 'burb mouse; but beating inside will always be the heart of a country mouse...

[CuppaJoe]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Walt34 ... And yes, in the spring we can smell the manure that's being spread on some nearby fields. That can be a good or bad thing depending one one's preferences.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freebird5825 Just yesterday I was treated to the simultaneous aromas of skunk and fresh manure. Mmmmmmmmmmmm... ....

Ah, yes, I remember it well, fresh country air.