2024, Travel, Uncategorized, work

Small Town Stuff

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We have a couple of new staff at work who are from larger metro areas and never lived in a rural or remote area before. They never realized how much they had to learn when they moved here.

One of our newbies, a social worker, came to the office quite upset last summer after seeing what she thought was a suicidal or intoxicated airplane pilot. She lives about 20 miles outside Dickinson in an even smaller community than ours, and while driving to work saw this little yellow airplane fly under and over power lines and dive close to the ground, then suddenly soar upwards. She wondered if she should phone the sheriff or the FAA. We had a lot of fun telling her about crop dusters. She also encounters coyotes in her backyard, a real shock.

Our new clinical director is surprised by the interconnectedness of us all. She was amazed to hear that one of our mental health skills trainers, a 40 year old mother of two, used to babysit for my kids when she was in high school, that her mother worked as a support staff at our agency for 30 years, and that her aunt is a social worker and one of our crisis staff. Then she learned that the parents of one of our staff were foster parents who adopted some of their foster children who I ultimately saw for therapy.

We tell our urban transplants that these new phenomena are just small town stuff, and we are so glad they are here and we will be happy to help them. It isn’t easy to go to an unfamiliar culture. I remember all the new things I had to learn when I moved to Canada, and I know that any of my rural coworkers would need to learn lots of new things if they moved to Minneapolis, or Seattle, or New York. Big town stuff is also tricky to navigate.

What would you educate newcomers about if they moved to your community? What would be harder for you to adjust to-rural or urban?

29 thoughts on “Small Town Stuff”

  3. Even though Owatonna is a big small town (26,000 people), the “lifers” are a distinct group as opposed to the newcomers, which includes me, a resident for some 25 years now. It’s a holdover from the old idea that you’re not “from here” if you don’t have at least a three-generation history.

    I really felt that in Carlton (pop. 800) when I taught there. Any family taht hadn’t been there at leat 50 years was consider an outsider. You certainly don’t see that in big cities. So I’d tell people not to feel rejected if they get that vibe.

    I’ve experienced both ends of the urban-rural spectrum: Carlton to Chicagoland. Big cities are great when you’re young, have energy, and want to “do things.” But small town/rural life is much easier to deal with when you’re older. Standing in endless lines and enduring daily traffic jams is such a waste of time.

    Chris in Owatonna

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    1. Our town in ND is like that too, in terms of lifers and newcomers. The oil boom helped change that somewhat, as the newcomers started to number the lifers.

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    2. I’ve found that lots of rural towns are like that. I didn’t realize until I’d lived in Waterville for about 10 years and a lady stopped me on the street and said, “I don’t recognize you but I’ve seen you around. Who are you? Where are you from? You’re not from here, are you, or I would know you!” I told her that I grew up on Cannon Lake (less than 10 miles away) and my dad’s family was originally from Morristown (about 5 miles away.) How close to Waterville is “from here?”

      They don’t know how it feels to be confronted that way. They’ve never been anywhere else.

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  5. I was such a Country Mouse when I moved to the big city of Minneapolis in 1979 from the remote country around Grand Rapids, MN, I was disoriented. I was learning to navigate the large campuses of the U of MN. I also did not know how to ride or stand on a city bus, which I used for transportation. One rainy day I boarded the crowded bus for the first time, umbrella in hand. I did not know to hold onto the rail or that buses jerk when taking off. The bus jerked, I fell forward, nearly hitting someone in the face with the umbrella. A kind man next me assessed the situation correctly and gave me basic bus-riding instructions. I blush thinking of it now.. 

    I love urban/suburban life. After growing up in the fishbowl of a small isolated town, and enduring the judgement and gossip, being anonymous is truly freedom to me.

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    1. Boy, do I know the judgment and gossip of living in a small town (~600 when I was growing up). And so many folks related to each other, whether closely or distantly. You had to be careful about what you said and to whom. I could never go back to that. I love suburban life. I’m close enough to both downtowns that I can easily take advantage of the opportunities there yet bask in the relative anonymity of suburban life.

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  6. Sadly, I would inform newcomers that not every man walking around the neighborhood is a sex offender. Downtown Franklin seems to receive a lot of registered offenders. I get one of those notification cards every couple of months. It’s cheap living and away from schools.

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  7. I feel very much like a country mouse here in Tacoma today as Daughter zips around in the horrendous traffic I sit in the back seat and just close my eyes.

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  8. I’ve lived in southern MN my whole life. Faribault and Northfield are middling-sized towns, but small compared to the metro area. Northfield is as close to urban as I’m ever going to get. I feel a great sense of stress sometimes in the cities, especially driving on freeways. I suppose I could adjust but I don’t think it would be easy.

    I like the two-lane county roads where you don’t have to go the speed limit if you don’t want to and the scenery is nice. I’m not a fan of asphalt and hot, weedy parking lots, and traffic jams, and poor air quality. I like to see at least some stars when I look out at night. I saw the northern lights once a year ago by driving out of town just a few miles. I like that. I’m a rural mouse.

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  10. Sorry if this adjusts to a more serious tone.

    “Urban” now means “black” for many people.

    “Urban” now means how quickly can get out of the inner city to my suburban safe place.

    A few years ago, I dated an “Urban” retired Cincinnati police officer. She taught me a lot about language and law enforcement and the demographics of racial inequalities.

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  11. I grew up in a massive city and one of the reasons I chose Carleton was I was really looking forward to living in a small town. The first popped bubble was that I was a Carl which differentiated me from a Townie. Not a lot of mixing. Then when I left school and moved to town (at the bottom of the hill from Carleton) and got a job… I STILL wasn’t a Townie. Back to the big city for me after those four years.

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  12. When YA was about seven, we went to Maine on vacation to experience the Machias Blueberry Festival. I spent almost a year planning this vacay and during my research, I connected with a woman who was on the planning committee for the festival. We emailed back and forth quite a bit and she invited us to stop by her house at the end of the four day festival. She and her husband served us tea and cookies and we chatted for close to two hours. During that two hours, she got TWO phone calls from town folks who had seen our rental car in her driveway, wanting to know who was visiting. TWO. It was a stunning realization that I had been correct to return to my big city roots. I do still fantasize about living in a small town, but I think it’s just a fantasy.

    By the way, the Machias Blueberry Festival was absolutely AMAZING!

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  13. Jacque reminds me of my first city experiences, riding buses and streetcars in San Francisco – I made all kinds of mistakes: got on the wrong bus line, got on the right bus going the wrong way, tried getting back on the same bus line with a transfer… I thought it was allowed within a time frame, got scolded by the driver. I learned eventually, and I did love the excitement of The City for a while, but it wore off.

    Winona is another middling town, like where I grew up- neither rural nor urban. Its size suite me; I felt a bit lost in Mpls. a lot of the time, except when with my select groups of people – women’s group, folk dancers, bloggers.

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  14. The West Side feels a lot like a small town within a city. I know lots of West Siders whose families have lived here for generations. They are adamant about pointing out that they don’t live in West St. Paul, which is a suburb, but on the West Side, which is within St. Paul city limits. West St. Paul is in Dakota County, and we’re in Ramsey County.

    I have lived on the West Side since 1974, and though I feel very much at home here, I’m an outsider. I didn’t go to school here, and they don’t know my parents or siblings. My fifty years of living here can’t fix that.

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  15. Coyotes in the back yard is a fairly common experience, in my opinion, not a strictly rural thing. I’m not far from the river and a regional park, so they’re all over the place in my neighborhood, but even miles away from the river, people spot them at night and in the early hours of the morning, hunting for mice and rabbits. I’m a little surprised that your newbie would be surprised.

    If someone with a rural upbringing moved in across the street, I would warn them about possible porch pirates and catalytic converter thieves, though I have no personal experience with either.

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