Living in BFE: A Primer

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about my current locale. When get to bitching, y'all will know.

There are lots of nice perks: walk to work and other places, a great outdoors community, nobody's in a rush, you can strike up a conversation with someone you don't know.

I'm just adjusting to a very different way of life from the major metro area I came from.

 

Boots should be able to tell us where it is.

 

It's one of the things I've wondered about in the last few years ... what it'd be like to live in a  small town.  I spent a year in Stratford, ON and enjoyed it very much.  I've visited lots of places like Owen Sound and Cobourg that seem like great places to make a life, and close enough to drive in for auditions, etc. if neccesary.  Don't know if I'd ever do it, but it sounds kind of inviting.

 

My home county, of about 20,000 or less people, is still dry. No matter though. If anyone wants alcohol they'll just drive across the county line and go to Bardstown, New Haven or some city that I can't remember the name of and hope the local cops don't stop you.

So yeah, I grew up in BFE...but I survived.

 

Someone talk me out of this:  I've never lived in a small or rural town, and I think I might love it.  As long as I could get wireless internet, and UPS could get to me daily to deliver all my online purchases, what else could I want? Okay, an airport, that would matter. Otherwise, I think I am craving an escape from phony materialistic social-climbers who care more about their manicures than their kids.

I'm thinking Boom and I could move to some small town in Nebraska, or South Dakota (are there airports in South Dakota?), build the high school a new pressbox...Boom could do play-by-play and I could run the concession stand. Something like that. Our kids would never know about MySpace or MTV or nose-piercings. Y'all can come for a SJ Summer Outing. How can that be a bad thing?

 

21,

Don't do it. You want the Hooterville experience? Go visit.

But living in the sticks is NO guarantee of safety. Most of the meth labs are out there.

 

The airport thing is an issue. I'm almost three hours from one right now. The last trip I took was a four-hour flight with an additional one-hour layover, and when I landed I still had a three-hour drive ahead of me. It made for the longest damn day.

 

It has its perks, to be sure. Crime isn't as much of a factor, most everything is easily accessible, it's easier to feel part of the community and, if you're into such a thing, being the sports guy/gal can translate into minor celebrity status.

The down side, as Cadet pointed out earlier, includes not having some of the conveniences of a larger city (24-hour stores, drive-throughs, cultural centers, etc.) and less chance at anonymity. Depending on where you are, small towns can be fairly expensive in their own right, especially if it's out of the way and it costs more to have goods shipped there. It just depends on what you're willing to give up for a slice of Mayberry.

Having lived in a village of 300, the DFW Metroplex and plenty of town in between, I have to say I prefer something like a city of 30,000 or so that's within an hour or two of a metropolitan center.

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21, there are plenty of airports in Dakota del Sud:
http://www.globalair.com/airport/state~/abrv=SD

I can give you recommendations on Nebraska, too, if you want.

 

And the meth is made fresh every morning!

 

Just keep going back to that well....

 

As someone who likes to go to that well, I'll point out that Billy Methmaker does not live on every street corner. You can live in a rural area without the fear of the house next to you exploding in the middle of the night.

 

Hell, I don't care about safety. Last week a fifteen year old driving his daddy's BMW ran over my lawn....I think i'm safer near the meth labs. Will keep a good fire extinguisher on hand, though, now that you mention it.

I just want to get away from the bullshit...rich people with small minds...women whose carat weight exceeds their IQs.  I'm the 'before' in Stepford.