Charlie, I'm buying the first round because Mike has to pass thru Western NY on his way back to Seattle.
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Small town living... like it/hate it?
- Thread starter Relic
- Start date
Charlie, I'm buying the first round because Mike has to pass thru Western NY on his way back to Seattle.
The only thing I don't like about the small town I live in is band opportunities are few and far between.
I thought my little area of Somerset county, NJ, was tiny town with nothing to really go on. Now I see its just a place people complain about where I'd they used it better they'd love it.
I just spent the weekend in Berlin, NH......No sir, I didn't like it! WOW talk about quiet and empty....
Moral of my story, when you think you've seen small, be aware it might be big compared to other smalls.
I just spent the weekend in Berlin, NH......No sir, I didn't like it! WOW talk about quiet and empty....
Moral of my story, when you think you've seen small, be aware it might be big compared to other smalls.
Haha, Berlin? Yeah, there ain't much up there. If I knew you were coming up this way, I could have directed you to a couple cool stops along the way. You weren't far from my place on your drive up.
-Mike
-Mike
Yea there wasn't much in the way of time from Friday to Sunday, especially with the minimum 7 hour drive. Otherwise I'd ask. I'll say....I had no clue "rest stop" between Vermont and New Hampshire could mean "miles out of your way to find nothing while you have a full bladder"! Lol.
The backstory is basically a close friend of the girlfriend's was getting married, and she wanted me to come along as real life proof I existed (as she, like myself, hasn't dated too much).
So I pretty much spent the weekend looking pretty to make her happy.
Well, NH, that's a check off my list of places to see....
I grew up on the outskirts of a "town" that existed only because a post office was there. We were maybe five miles from that mecca of culture, but only about 3 from one of the last big truck stops before the long stretch of nothing on I-10 leaving Phoenix. Got paved roads when I was 6, that was exciting. When I was ten we moved out of the trailers and into a huge (and incredibly shoddily built) house. The trailers were on the other side of the road and a 1/2 mile away from the nearest neighbors, the house actually had people living on one of the adjoining parcels! I was aghast, as it meant I had to pay a lot more attention to which direction I was facing when I shot a pest trying to eat our garden.
I always thought of myself as a country boy, and complained bitterly about having to live in the city for economic reasons. Somewhere between being stationed in 29 m#####f###ing Palms and moving to the suburbs of Seattle I came to realize that, outside of the actual downtown areas, I could have the peace and quiet of small town life without the brutal isolation of living in one pretty easily. I like not having to drive 30 minutes to get to Walmart, and having Walmart not be the local cultural hub. I like having good beer readily available, instead of an hour drive to a grocery store that thinks Sam Adams is la-dee-da.
I always thought of myself as a country boy, and complained bitterly about having to live in the city for economic reasons. Somewhere between being stationed in 29 m#####f###ing Palms and moving to the suburbs of Seattle I came to realize that, outside of the actual downtown areas, I could have the peace and quiet of small town life without the brutal isolation of living in one pretty easily. I like not having to drive 30 minutes to get to Walmart, and having Walmart not be the local cultural hub. I like having good beer readily available, instead of an hour drive to a grocery store that thinks Sam Adams is la-dee-da.
Small towns aren't for everyone as previously said. I've spent most of my life living in a town of around 4,000. We have grocery stores, and a pretty decent downtown though. The nice thing is that everybody knows each other. The bad thing is that everybody know each other. Like anywhere you live, the amount of "stuff to do" will depend on how many friends you can have/make in the area.
I live in a community of 10,000 and I am a 30 minute drive to one of the ten largest cities in the country. For a small town, it isn't too bad, but I like the city and so does my wife.
lowsound
lowsound
Only if it's a cover band. I left the small town for that reason...nobody wanted to listen to original music they are unfamiliar with. And when a town is so small that night life doesn't exist after 9pm except for 2-3 bars (which still dont/rarely play bands) musical opportunity hits a major road block. Playing covers did keep busy, but a ton of miles had to be put on to get to those spread-out places that did want live music.
philvanv
Gerbil Turds, Kitsap County Turd Core
- Jul 2, 2012
- 530
- 17
- Disclosures
- and at the bottom it says thank you, and now you can shag off
I agree w the Pilgrim.....its tough unless you have access. I moved from the Unincorporated East L.a. journey to a small tourist fishing town a ferry ride from Seattle Wa. I am lucky as I have worked in sheet metal for as long as I can remember and we have shipyards, marine maintenance facilities etc that always need journeymen.
I am also lucky to have a dying town that was once a happening city rebuilding itself and with that come a good music scene, casinos and night life. The majority of people work at one of the shipyards and the rest drive around the Peninsula or ferry over to Seattle.
I do not miss the traffic or the one upping of the city. I do miss the different types of culture the city provides in such small areas. I have learned that WA is a very dominant white state. Comming from an area with tons of ethnicity it took a little getting used to. Now that I'm back in music I will be flying every so often to Ca when we jam so all in all I have the best of both.....
I am also lucky to have a dying town that was once a happening city rebuilding itself and with that come a good music scene, casinos and night life. The majority of people work at one of the shipyards and the rest drive around the Peninsula or ferry over to Seattle.
I do not miss the traffic or the one upping of the city. I do miss the different types of culture the city provides in such small areas. I have learned that WA is a very dominant white state. Comming from an area with tons of ethnicity it took a little getting used to. Now that I'm back in music I will be flying every so often to Ca when we jam so all in all I have the best of both.....
Hopkins
Commercial User
I grew up in a very small town, I graduated with 70 people and that was a big class. I moved to Houston about 8 years ago, and while I love visiting my friends and family for a good week or so at a time and getting to do the whole small town thing, I don't think I would want to give up living in the city. Everything is a short drive away in the city, more to do, high speed internet, restaurants, ect. I will stick to living in the city and visiting the country.
I now live in a town in north Texas that has a smaller population than the apartment complex I used to live in in northern California. I despise it. What people have been saying about homogeneity in small towns definitely rings true here, and as someone with absolutely no interest in hunting, country music, crystal meth, the GOP, or Christianity, finding anyone with even a remote similar interest is proving to be very challenging indeed. I actually find myself becoming pretty introverted simply due to not wanting to get myself completely ostracized from the community.
For people who do like some of the things I've listed, (I hear the meth is exquisite) I could see how this could be seen as somewhat of a paradise, just not mine.
For people who do like some of the things I've listed, (I hear the meth is exquisite) I could see how this could be seen as somewhat of a paradise, just not mine.
philvanv
Gerbil Turds, Kitsap County Turd Core
- Jul 2, 2012
- 530
- 17
- Disclosures
- and at the bottom it says thank you, and now you can shag off
WNY...that's me too. In a small town, about an hour and a bit to get to the big city-Buffalo. Great place to raise a family, etc. etc.
But you have to deal with small town politics, family legacies, and those type of things.
And small town living does not necessarily equate with small taxes. Property taxes anywhere in NY are horrendous. Sure, it's easy to buy a big house because prices are low, but many people have trouble holding on to it because of the taxes.
Plenty of gigs if you know where to look, but, as someone else mentioned, the choice of great (if not simply good) players are limited.
Yeah, I say say that anyone who lives in a "small town" with tens of thousands of people or within an hour's drive of a major urban center is actually experiencing suburban living even if the community they live in isn't nominally a suburb or isn't primarily made up of commuters.
If you can go buy groceries at 2 in the morning (or good groceries without an hour's drive) or are able to make it home early enough after going to a concert/show in the city to go to work the next morning, you're not really familiar with the inconveniences that accompany the picture book type of small town living that initially springs to mind for most people.
In Seattle people have just replaced Walmart with Costco -- except that the crowds, lines, and parking are 10 times worse than a typical rural Walmart, especially on weekends. What a mess. I've never seen bigger, more enthusiastic shopping hordes than at Northwest Costco stores on a weekend. It's almost worth paying the super-inflated Seattle area grocery store prices to avoid the ridiculous crowds. Almost. A 6-pack of Newcastle at my local grocery store costs $8.99. Ridiculous. :scowl:
But unquestionably the worst part of this area is traffic. Both weekday and weekend, it NEVER stops. It takes me 45 minutes each direction on average to drive 10 miles to work, and that's entirely in the suburbs (between north Kirkland and Bellevue). "Rush hour" runs 6:30am to 10:30am every morning, and 3:30pm to 7:30pm every night. During the 3 months when it doesn't rain, I ride my bike to work because it's often FASTER than driving. No joke.
There are unquestionably lots of cool areas to explore around Seattle in your free time. But you can't actually get there due to weekend traffic. You just can't believe how many cars are on the road by noon on Saturday. It's nearly as bad as weekday rush hour, except it lasts all day long! A few weeks ago I tried driving down to Tacoma on a Saturday afternoon. It took me about 2.5 hours to get from my house to downtown Tacoma on the Interstate, a grand total of 45 miles! Just try visiting Mount Rainier on a clear summer weekend. Hint: budget an extra 2 hours for bumper-to-bumper traffic. It felt more like visiting a drive-thru mountain rather than a preserve.
People here seem to think they're laid back (I hear tons of people say that when describing Seattle), but I have to disagree. Compared to the South/SouthEast (where I grew up), people I run across around here seem to be angrier, on-edge, and almost pathologically self-absorbed. Maybe it's the traffic that takes otherwise laid-back people and corrupts them. No idea. In any case, it's not what I'd call a friendly place.
With all that said, I do have a good job which funds my gear acquisition habit and a few hobbies. And that makes up for a lot.
Northbound on I-5 from Olympia is ridiculous every day of the week. Forget about it Sunday afternoon.
-Mike
-Mike
