Retirment in Rolla?

[Hazel W]

Originally Posted by ozarksboy

We have a serious drug problem in Rolla, the result of increased diversity as St. Louis residents move here.

The university enrollment set another record this semester; over 8,000 students, mostly engineers with noses in their calculus books. They are a quiet bunch.

We just recently had the Celebration of Nations parade and festival, which showed the diversity in nationalities we have. We have so many Muslims that we have more than one mosque, so that might be a welcoming feature for those seeking a multi-cultural experience.

I don't know what to say about the abundance of turtles. We do have an abundance of wildlife here. We generally leave the turtles alone, although we do shoot the deer, squirrels and turkeys, and we chase the raccoons with dogs.

We have many retirees here. Most of them are wealthy and can afford to go shopping and spend the weekends in St. Louis like the university professors, the hospital doctors and the lawyers and all their wives do. That empties out the town on the weekends, so the rest of us can have some peace and quiet and less traffic as we drive to Walmart.

Sounds like a normal Missouri town to me. :-) Or maybe any other town. Good, bad and indifferent. I'd love to see those turtles. They aren't terrapins?

[ION1010]

Yeah, I thought it was cool that the pickup behind me drove around a turtle, too. They're not big enough to make a soup out of so I understand why no one bothers them.

We live in a college town now and enjoy the diverse opportunities it brings but it also has some snobs and hipsters. Not so much in Rolla, it seems. Columbia is another matter.

[Curmudgeon]

The turtles are MO's state reptile and too cute to inure. Rolla sits astride the old Route 66 which is nostalgic for me (going back 60-some years) and we enjoyed the day or two we spent there and meeting OB and the members of his church. We'd already purchased our retirement home in SW MO but if we hadn't, Rolla would have been a "contendah" said in my best On the Waterfront, Marlon Brando voice. We liked it.