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Some of my favorite stories from life on an island in Michigan. Going to vote last year, and the election worker says, “hi xyz, when did you get back from your trip, how’s the family, we drove past your place a few times to make sure it was ok. Oh, can I see some id?” Next story, now with the virus, nobody allowed in the grocery store, you email your order and pickup time, and it’s placed on a long white table in a bag with your name. Today drove up for my order and there were about a half dozen other unattended orders waiting to be picked up. Never even a whisper of concern that anyone would drive up and grab it all. Health care beyond our little rural health center certainly is a concern, but everyone who lives here has weighed the risks and made their choices, realizing you might have to move off if a health issue becomes chronic.
I grew up in a town in the mountain west with 140 people. The county is half the size of Rhode Island and has had roughly 1000-1500 people living there since the 1870's.
Awesome pics Cloudy Dayz,
Very appropriate to the subject as well.
When the wife and I were searching our “forever home” we spent a bit of time looking around Coos Bay and that area just wasn’t right for us for some reason.
There was something just didn’t seem click for us.
Oakland is an area we never considered.
It looks nice.
We ended up finding our spot near the end of the Olympic Peninsula.
We are about 15 minutes away from a small town town that has Costco, Walmart, Safeway, stores like that and are close to family and long time friends.
Coming from San Francisco I feel our spot works.
It is not the town time forgot due to all the new residential construction I have seen lately.
Heck it is not even a town but when I go pickup supplies in the nearby town I get cheerfully greeted numerous times by strangers.
I just love that and it is just a small one road town.
We are actually a few miles away from a town that only has 100 residents that we have to pass to get to “the big town” of 6k people with box stores.
Our area is a bit behind the times.
Other than a few box stores it seems like the a late 50’s or mid 60’s kind of place.
Once again those were awesome pics.
Thank you.
Andy.
About 5 years ago my Wife and I decided to take a fishing trip down to Alabama. It was a nice relaxed drive down from our home near Toronto. We ended up staying at a State park near Eufala . The park has nice modern cottages for rent at a very reasonable price. The town was about 5 miles away.
We drove into the town and were amazed at how huge the houses on the main and side streets were. Two stories and with wrap around porches with screens to keep out the bugs. Beautiful gardens and well kept lawns. Very impressive. The business area was not as well kept, and my Wife remarked about how bad the sidewalks looked, broken and crumbling . The main square had a nice circular garden in the middle with a ornamental fountain.
We went for a walk about the commercial district and it became obvious that a lot of the stores were out of business, and the ones that were open had what I would call reduced hours or they were closed a couple of days each week. My Wife loves antique china so we went into one shop and we were surprised to find that the shelves were all most empty. A very poor selection.
The female owner was nice and she explained that she was closing the business soon. Her sister had also been in business in Eufala for years but she sold her retail building at a loss to a car dealer, but that business only lasted a year until it also went out of business.
We needed to buy some groceries for our week long stay at the lake, so we went to the Winn Dixie on the road out of town. It was a old building, probably built pre WW2. It was run down, and it needed a good cleaning, especially the front window glass. We had a shopping list so we started going up and down the aisles but it was kind of hard to not notice how the choices were quite limited and in some cases there was only one type of item like just Green Giant corn, or Quaker oats cereal. It felt old and tired.
On the way out of town I noticed a square concrete block building with a roof top sign for a AM radio station. I used to work in radio in Canada so I always take notice of the local stations as I travel around in my retirement . When we got back to the cottage I tuned in the local station and listened to it for an hour or so. I soon realized that it was a robot station, that had no actual on air people,. It was operated remotely from some big city hundreds of miles away, may be Dallas or Miami. That's what has happened to small town radio in the States. The big operators have automated the small stations in order to save on employee wages and admin costs.
Our impression of Eufala was a small town that was slowly dying out. No reason for the young people to stay after they finished high school, and the average age of the people who still lived was edging towards 65.
Oh how sad,
It is a shame when things are like that.
I kinda like older areas that keep chugging along due to ranching, farming, vineyards, sea ports, book stores, hardware stores, diners and such.
It is a bonus when you get to see old brick buildings like Cloudy Dayz posted or 150 year old family farms that sell to the public with tall grain silos and such.
They actually converted a grain company with a big tall metal tower into a restaurant where we are at.
Looks cool but I’m an old fashioned diner or Mexican hole in the wall eatery kind of guy.
All the best.
Andy.
BTW, we have a big group of my wife’s family that live in Toronto .
She a Canadian ? Or is it one of these very common " by marriage " connections ?
70ou might like to look up a place here in Ontario called..... ..Niagara On The Lake which is a 1760 town with many original homes and stores. A very popular tourist attraction.
Yes my darling wife is very Canadian.
We have been together for 40 plus years and married for almost 39 years.
She never wanted to become an American Citizen but just before the virus she did apply for it so she would have better tax advantages if I died.
Her family were farmers from Saskatchewan with very large families.
She must have a good 60-70 or so first cousins spread out between Canada and the states.
Her father went to college after being a pilot in ww2 and became a geologist.
That made college a bit easier for his kids.
I met her when her father was working in the San Francisco office of an oil company.
Most settled in Victoria but her older brother lives in Toronto.
So we just have to hop a ferry to see her sister and a bunch of cousins.
There is actually a few of her cousins that live here close to us and we dig that .
Oh how sad,
It is a shame when things are like that.
I kinda like older areas that keep chugging along due to ranching, farming, vineyards, sea ports, book stores, hardware stores, diners and such. It is a bonus when you get to see old brick buildings like Cloudy Dayz posted or 150 year old family farms that sell to the public with tall grain silos and such.
They actually converted a grain company with a big tall metal tower into a restaurant where we are at.
Looks cool but I’m an old fashioned diner or Mexican hole in the wall eatery kind of guy.
All the best.
Andy.
BTW, we have a big group of my wife’s family that live in Toronto .
Here is another town stuck in the 1950s. Powers, Oregon. No old brick buildings, but it's supposed to be one of the most remote towns in Western Oregon. The resident's have actually fought against road improvements, they say would change the town too much. Probably not a good place for outsiders to move to though.
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