January 4, 20205 yr 1 hour ago, Armybrat said: When I got married, my fist job was in Giddings (1967-1969). No desire to live in a town that small again.
January 4, 20205 yr Durango is also a college town, spent two years at Ft. Lewis there. Great town. I've got to say Granbury is a pretty nice big town, it's a cross between Fredricksburg and Marble Falls. Quaint shops and fine dining down on the square in historic buildings, a ton of golf courses, lake running right through the middle. You can get a badass waterfront home with boat lift for under $250/sqft. You are 45 minutes from downtown Ft. Worth. My subdivision has 36 holes of golf, two air strips, a lively clubhouse. A lot of the residents are engineers that drive in to Carswell each day, we have a ton of airline pilots that just fly their personal planes to work most days. The town has good schools, decent restaurants, Ulta, Specs, and most important, an HEB (when its open). CHIEF
January 4, 20205 yr Just now, CHIEF said: Durango is also a college town, spent two years at Ft. Lewis there. Great town. I've got to say Granbury is a pretty nice big town, it's a cross between Fredricksburg and Marble Falls. Quaint shops and fine dining down on the square in historic buildings, a ton of golf courses, lake running right through the middle. You can get a badass waterfront home with boat lift for under $250/sqft. You are 45 minutes from downtown Ft. Worth. My subdivision has 36 holes of golf, two air strips, a lively clubhouse. A lot of the residents are engineers that drive in to Carswell each day, we have a ton of airline pilots that just fly their personal planes to work most days. The town has good schools, decent restaurants, Ulta, Specs, and most important, an HEB (when its open). CHIEF Parents are looking at purchasing a lakehouse there, sounds like a ton of permian basin retirees have relocated over there. Was looking at the Medical community the other day and it appears there is a nice group of specialties represented.
January 4, 20205 yr Just now, MoJames said: Parents are looking at purchasing a lakehouse there, sounds like a ton of permian basin retirees have relocated over there. Was looking at the Medical community the other day and it appears there is a nice group of specialties represented. Yep, Midland/Odessa area is a big real estate market for us. Let me know if they need any help, I'm a realtor. CHIEF
January 4, 20205 yr 1 minute ago, CHIEF said: Yep, Midland/Odessa area is a big real estate market for us. Let me know if they need any help, I'm a realtor. CHIEF Haha, nice. I'll pass it along.
January 4, 20205 yr The lake is tiny though even when full. Only ever been to the square and the Walmart is not sure what else is out there.
January 4, 20205 yr My wife recently accepted a job in rural western Oklahoma, pop. 3000, so this hits close to home. The commute is 45 mins, so no need to move. I've talked to guy from the town once, he said they don't have any restaurants and have to drive into our town if they want to eat out. No thanks.
January 5, 20205 yr On 1/3/2020 at 3:29 PM, MoJames said: It's getting even worse with most Oil and Gas Companies moving out of town. Gonna be interesting what is left down there in about 10 years. Only decent thing about that area is Pinon Hills Golf Course, it's not great, but a fun public course. Some incredible fly fishing at the Juan though.
January 5, 20205 yr Durango is also a college town, spent two years at Ft. Lewis there. Great town. I've got to say Granbury is a pretty nice big town, it's a cross between Fredricksburg and Marble Falls. Quaint shops and fine dining down on the square in historic buildings, a ton of golf courses, lake running right through the middle. You can get a badass waterfront home with boat lift for under $250/sqft. You are 45 minutes from downtown Ft. Worth. My subdivision has 36 holes of golf, two air strips, a lively clubhouse. A lot of the residents are engineers that drive in to Carswell each day, we have a ton of airline pilots that just fly their personal planes to work most days. The town has good schools, decent restaurants, Ulta, Specs, and most important, an HEB (when its open). CHIEF You in Pecan?
January 5, 20205 yr Some incredible fly fishing at the Juan though.If you like fishing next to 15 guys.
January 5, 20205 yr On 1/2/2020 at 7:02 PM, Iceman said: some a y'all have no fucking idea what a small town is... Heh. Look up Graham, Missouri - my Dad’s hometown. I spent several summers there. It makes Giddings look like a metropolis.
January 5, 20205 yr Would never live in a small town in Texas (unless South Padre Island course). Unless you consider where I live now in the outskirts of Melissa to be a small town even though I'm a 15 minute drive down 75 from Dallas. Feels like a small town but one that I can easily have every big city amenity open to me in a matter of minutes. If had to live in a small town somewhere around Colorado City would be preferable.
January 5, 20205 yr 34 minutes ago, Armybrat said: Heh. Look up Graham, Missouri - my Dad’s hometown. I spent several summers there. It makes Giddings look like a metropolis. part of the Maitland MSA...LOlz. yeah, that'd qualify as a small town.
January 5, 20205 yr 11 minutes ago, Iceman said: part of the Maitland MSA...LOlz. yeah, that'd qualify as a small town. Don’t knock Maitland, that town actually had a dentist.
January 5, 20205 yr I live in Boerne, so my kids growing up thought they lived in a small town. Now that they’re in college, the wife and I want to move into SA. More for the money and etc!
January 5, 20205 yr I live in Boerne, so my kids growing up thought they lived in a small town. Now that they’re in college, the wife and I want to move into SA. More for the money and etc!I lived in Boerne during the 80’s when it was still a small town. There wasn’t a single chain restaurant or grocery store. It was kind of nice. The high school was still 3A.
January 5, 20205 yr 44 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said: Melissa is 15 minutes from Plano maybe. Maybe at 2am with nobody on the road. Rush hour traffic you can't get past Allen in 15 minutes.
January 6, 20205 yr On 9/9/2019 at 3:43 PM, ShaggyBevo RIP said: Have in the past and intend to retire to the NC mountains. I've been scouting for retirement locales, and Brevard, NC is the only place that passes the test in the east.
January 6, 20205 yr 34 minutes ago, Beau Vine said: I've been scouting for retirement locales, and Brevard, NC is the only place that passes the test in the east. Last year I had a job interview in Brevard. Then I got into traffic as I drove back to my hotel in Asheville and no thanks.
January 6, 20205 yr Quitaque has a Dollar General... far too metropolitan. I'll give you a wooden nickel if you can tell me the mascot for Quitaque High without looking it up...( school closed in '72)
January 6, 20205 yr 32 minutes ago, Iceman said: Quitaque has a Dollar General... far too metropolitan. I'll give you a wooden nickel if you can tell me the mascot for Quitaque High without looking it up...( school closed in '72) The quitters.
January 6, 20205 yr 1 hour ago, Iceman said: Quitaque has a Dollar General... far too metropolitan. I'll give you a wooden nickel if you can tell me the mascot for Quitaque High without looking it up...( school closed in '72) Pretty sure there is no Dollar General. Spent the last 2 nights there. Went to Allsups and Bison Cafe though. Wife's family has lived there since the late 60's, Cotton farm in White flat, turkey etc. Her Great Aunt retired from the Valley School.
January 6, 20205 yr Disclaimer: I haven't read all 15 pages. I live in Austin proper now but grew up in southeast TX and have no desire to go back or move out of the city. I was born in Port Arthur and moved to Groves in 6th grade. I think PA is ~60k people and Groves is ~15k, so neither is super tiny in population, but SETX is so insular, culturally, that it feels much smaller than it is. Families have been there for generations and many people are happy to just keep the cycle going. It's rare for people to leave permanently, if they leave at all. There are good things about it, for sure, but I couldn't wait to get out of town. I never felt like I REALLY fit in there. 18 years was long enough.
January 6, 20205 yr On 1/3/2020 at 12:07 AM, Pato del Muerto said: Asheville is not a small town. Nor is Casper...
January 6, 20205 yr On 1/3/2020 at 12:03 PM, Al_4_ISU said: Absolutely true. It's definitely part of why I'm pretty content with a town of 4000. Compared to what I grew up with, the level of services is available is off the charts. We were 25 minutes from a town this size growing up. I lived in a town with a population of 289. It was wild. I will never experience anything like it again unless I move back at some point, which I want to do. It was like living life 80 years ago, except there was satellite internet. Edited January 6, 20205 yr by UpperWestside
January 6, 20205 yr On 1/3/2020 at 12:22 AM, Chopper said: Re-read what I've asked you and then go fuck yourself. With all due respect, I don’t think you have the proper demeanor to live in a small town.
January 6, 20205 yr 10 hours ago, Hate said: I lived in Boerne during the 80’s when it was still a small town. There wasn’t a single chain restaurant or grocery store. It was kind of nice. The high school was still 3A. Boerne was big city for me when I lived in Pipe Creek. Loved it but had to move to Houston to make $$$, so, here we are.
January 6, 20205 yr 14 minutes ago, StruggleBus said: With all due respect, I don’t think you have the proper demeanor to live in a small town. Some people say a difficult thing about small town living is dealing with passive-aggressive, gossipy bitches. Thanks for the reminder.
January 6, 20205 yr Author Somebody way up thread said a lot of small towns are shitty places to raise kids nowadays. I can see it in my own extended family. My grandfather's brother, on his way to a drink-induced early grave, took as his last wife a Highland Park Pi Phi and they moved to her folks old home town -- Bogada, Texas, in Red River County. There he knocked her up three times in short order, and then he drank his way out of that arrangement. His ex took up with a notorious local pot farmer and had another kid before he went to the big house. All the kids were girls, and today, only one of them is somewhat normal. She's a nurse in one of the nearby towns big enough to have a hospital. Her sister is a crazy cat lady and lives with their mom in a nice old house that reeks of cat piss. The other full sister is dying of cirrhosis and the half-sister is batshit crazy and into all kinds of shit. All of them except the crazy cat sister (who I think is a lesbian) popped out a mess of kids and almost all of them are living in trailers and dropping kids of their own all over the place. It's weird seeing a mirror image of your family and knowing that it likely would have been us had we grown up in that same place. Those four girls used to visit us in Houston a lot, and they used to be mirror image of my aunts, who could be my sisters, because our age gap is only five-12 years. Now if you put pics of the Bogada bunch next to my aunts, it looks like that photoshop series "If this Hollywood celebrity was from Oklahoma, this is what she would look like." It's peaceful up there, and the nights are quiet and still. The terrain is pretty enough, and I liked it enough when I visited as a boy, as you can see from the pic of me and my "dead" cousin Morgan. On the other hand, that whole county is dying on the vine. Clarksville is the county seat, and it's one of the most withered courthouse towns east of 35. (My grandmother on the other side of the family was from there, but she hightailed it out of there around WW2 and never looked back.) There isn't much to do in that whole county but smoke meth and fuck.
January 6, 20205 yr 2 hours ago, austingirl said: but SETX is so insular, culturally, that it feels much smaller than it is. The entire golden triangle is one huge metroplex, imo
January 6, 20205 yr 23 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said: There isn't much to do in that whole county but smoke meth and fuck. NTTAWWT.
January 6, 20205 yr 9 hours ago, Errestaurants said: Pretty sure there is no Dollar General. Spent the last 2 nights there. Went to Allsups and Bison Cafe though. Wife's family has lived there since the late 60's, Cotton farm in White flat, turkey etc. Her Great Aunt retired from the Valley School. you're right it doesn't. Gotta go into Tulia or Floydada for that. Quitaque High was the Panthers. A mural is still on the side of the small grocery there.
January 6, 20205 yr Somebody way up thread said a lot of small towns are shitty places to raise kids nowadays. I can see it in my own extended family. My grandfather's brother, on his way to a drink-induced early grave, took as his last wife a Highland Park Pi Phi and they moved to her folks old home town -- Bogada, Texas, in Red River County. There he knocked her up three times in short order, and then he drank his way out of that arrangement. His ex took up with a notorious local pot farmer and had another kid before he went to the big house. All the kids were girls, and today, only one of them is somewhat normal. She's a nurse in one of the nearby towns big enough to have a hospital. Her sister is a crazy cat lady and lives with their mom in a nice old house that reeks of cat piss. The other full sister is dying of cirrhosis and the half-sister is batshit crazy and into all kinds of shit. All of them except the crazy cat sister (who I think is a lesbian) popped out a mess of kids and almost all of them are living in trailers and dropping kids of their own all over the place. It's weird seeing a mirror image of your family and knowing that it likely would have been us had we grown up in that same place. Those four girls used to visit us in Houston a lot, and they used to be mirror image of my aunts, who could be my sisters, because our age gap is only five-12 years. Now if you put pics of the Bogada bunch next to my aunts, it looks like that photoshop series "If this Hollywood celebrity was from Oklahoma, this is what she would look like." It's peaceful up there, and the nights are quiet and still. The terrain is pretty enough, and I liked it enough when I visited as a boy, as you can see from the pic of me and my "dead" cousin Morgan. On the other hand, that whole county is dying on the vine. Clarksville is the county seat, and it's one of the most withered courthouse towns east of 35. (My grandmother on the other side of the family was from there, but she hightailed it out of there around WW2 and never looked back.) There isn't much to do in that whole county but smoke meth and fuck. I doubt it was the small town and more of the upbringing that fucked up your family. Bogata Yup. I’ve got a cousin that preaches up that way.
January 6, 20205 yr Used to be pretty good hunting up in Clarksville. Never knew what was going to pop out.
January 6, 20205 yr One of my college roommates was from Clarksville. She grew up dirt poor with a really crappy home life (which, from what she said, was par for the course for almost everyone there) but ended up with a scholarship to UT and eventually got a PhD. Works in DC in some non-partisan transportation planning capacity now. Anywho, when she graduated with her bachelor's degree, her mom and two brothers, who still lived in Clarksville, stayed with us for a few days. We lost touch for a while and then a couple of years later she called me out of the blue with a crazy story. One of her brothers disappeared and her mom reported it to the police. Turns out that the two brothers who had stayed with us had gotten into a fight several days earlier and one stabbed the other to death. The killer's girlfriend helped him bury the body under their mom's trailer, where the murder happened. They left town, but I guess guilt finally got the best of him because he turned himself in and plead guilty and will spend the rest of his life in prison in Huntsville. /csb
January 6, 20205 yr Grew up in Sheridan, Indiana, population around 2,000. About 45 minutes to Indianapolis, but might as well be a different country. Got out as soon as I could, and no way I could live there again. Been in Austin since 1991. I'm sure there are other small towns I could live in that would be awesome, but not that one.
January 7, 20205 yr Author 10 hours ago, austingirl said: One of my college roommates was from Clarksville. She grew up dirt poor with a really crappy home life (which, from what she said, was par for the course for almost everyone there) but ended up with a scholarship to UT and eventually got a PhD. Works in DC in some non-partisan transportation planning capacity now. Anywho, when she graduated with her bachelor's degree, her mom and two brothers, who still lived in Clarksville, stayed with us for a few days. We lost touch for a while and then a couple of years later she called me out of the blue with a crazy story. One of her brothers disappeared and her mom reported it to the police. Turns out that the two brothers who had stayed with us had gotten into a fight several days earlier and one stabbed the other to death. The killer's girlfriend helped him bury the body under their mom's trailer, where the murder happened. They left town, but I guess guilt finally got the best of him because he turned himself in and plead guilty and will spend the rest of his life in prison in Huntsville. /csb Wow. It's weird looking through pics of my ancestors there. It used to be a proud and prosperous little town. For whatever reason, it did not continue to grow like Paris, Bonham, Sherman, Denison, and Texarkana. It's peak population was 5,000 40 years ago and now it's about 3,000 and still shrinking. There is still a lot of pride there, especially around the Presbyterian church, which dates back to before the Tx Revolution. They were so far from Mexico they were able to ignore that pretend Catholicism Santa Anna tried to enforce. Here's a little CSB -- I met one of my cousins on Facebook and was looking through her pics. She attends reunions at that church from time to time and one year she brought her boyfriend -- Bill Bradley, the former presidential candidate and basketball star. (He also has, or had, a very cool Sirius Radio talk show.) On my last visit there a couple of years ago, either one of my cousins or somebody else I met up there told me that there was some Mr Big in town who has the clout to shoot down any outsiders who try to come there and create new jobs. He regards the town's entire labor force as his own to exploit and pay shit wages to as he sees fit. So the town just stagnates. One of the saddest things I saw was on the courthouse square. It really is a pretty one, one of the better in Texas, but in the coolest building on that square they have not an antique store, not a visitor center, not a restaurant or bar, but a payday loan spot.
January 7, 20205 yr Having lived in a small town for a year (Nocona) I can honestly say that moving there permanently would be equal to going to Greenwood Cemetery and requesting an eternal reservation.
January 7, 20205 yr The world's leading living expert on small towns is John Cougar. He was living in Bloomington, population 70k, at the time he wrote the song. Today it's 80k. He grew up in Seymour, population 18,000. Quote "I wanted to write a song that said, 'You don't have to live in New York or Los Angeles to live a full life or enjoy your life.' I was never one of those guys that grew up and thought, 'I need to get out of here.' It never dawned on me. I just valued having a family and staying close to friends."[ Edited January 7, 20205 yr by Chopper
January 7, 20205 yr 70k people ain't a small town. It's a smaller city. Hell anything's a 'small town' relative to NYC or LA. When you know EVERYBODY in town, and they knew your parents and grandparents before you; then it's a small town.
January 7, 20205 yr 9 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said: Wow. It's weird looking through pics of my ancestors there. It used to be a proud and prosperous little town. For whatever reason, it did not continue to grow like Paris, Bonham, Sherman, Denison, and Texarkana. It's peak population was 5,000 40 years ago and now it's about 3,000 and still shrinking. There is still a lot of pride there, especially around the Presbyterian church, which dates back to before the Tx Revolution. They were so far from Mexico they were able to ignore that pretend Catholicism Santa Anna tried to enforce. Here's a little CSB -- I met one of my cousins on Facebook and was looking through her pics. She attends reunions at that church from time to time and one year she brought her boyfriend -- Bill Bradley, the former presidential candidate and basketball star. (He also has, or had, a very cool Sirius Radio talk show.) On my last visit there a couple of years ago, either one of my cousins or somebody else I met up there told me that there was some Mr Big in town who has the clout to shoot down any outsiders who try to come there and create new jobs. He regards the town's entire labor force as his own to exploit and pay shit wages to as he sees fit. So the town just stagnates. One of the saddest things I saw was on the courthouse square. It really is a pretty one, one of the better in Texas, but in the coolest building on that square they have not an antique store, not a visitor center, not a restaurant or bar, but a payday loan spot. I wonder if it was something like happened to Marshall. Marshall was a prosperous town with lots of nice houses and booming business a while back, but they were too clannish and wouldn't let outsiders in. So now there are tons of really nice old homes that are falling apart there.
January 7, 20205 yr 2 hours ago, Iceman said: 70k people ain't a small town. It's a smaller city. Hell anything's a 'small town' relative to NYC or LA. When you know EVERYBODY in town, and they knew your parents and grandparents before you; then it's a small town. All of the stores in our downtown locked their doors last Friday morning so that everybody could attend the funeral of a longtime resident. That's small town.
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