Small town funk.

Hello. How many of you are here because my lil sis sent you over? Either way, this entry is a tribute to the town I live in. For previous vents about my town, see near the end of "NY weather" and in the middle of "A&P is done" I'll probably repeat some of it in this, but oh well.

I can already hear some people saying "Oh Adam, you're just anti-social", or "You just haven't caught the small town spirit yet" No I'm not and you're right, I haven't. Nor do I wanna catch it, if it turns you into what so many people in this town are.

You can tell who was born here by the way they act and what they talk about.
You can also tell who is not native to this town, because even if they have caught the C-funk, it's usually not as acute of a case as the home grown ones.

Now before I go wild here, I would like to insert a disclaimer.

There are quite a few people I know in this town who are very down to earth, who have their heads on straight, and have not been completely white washed by the C-Funk. Some of them may have it on them, but they haven't been taken over as of yet.
Some of the things I'm going to describe may not sound so bad to some of you, some of you may even think I'm just intolerant of differing opinions, and some of you may go back to me being antisocial or not having caught the small town spirit yet. But anyway.

I Don't think this town has ever had a wake-up call. The level of apathy here is so high it's disgusting. Everyone has the "That wont happen to me" or "Nothing like that ever happens in this town" mentality.

My mom was talking to a County Sheriff and he said that our little town (village population around 2500-3000) has more drug problems per populous than Rome and Utica combined (Utica has a population of 60,651 and Rome has a population of 34,950.) I do realize that the numbers are quite different and that it's hard to compare the 2, but I threw it in there anyway.
Now if you ask anyone in this town about the drug problems, the only thing that anyone will admit exists is Weed. And weed is used heavily. Sometimes the cops even overlook "exchanges" that some of the ballsier dopers do right in front of them. They have, however, started buckling down big time. They've been doing random drug searches at the school with K9s due to the sheer number of incidents that have occurred on school grounds so far this year.
But if you ask John or Jane Q. Public, they won't believe that there is anything worse than Weed in this town. There was a major drug bust in town last year that involved the DEA, FBI, State Troopers, County Sheriffs... 25+ people got arrested, many different locations involved, started at the High School (no pun intended), spread to some dealers residences when the kids at the school cracked and spilled their guts, big huge deal. And ya know what? Most of the townsfolk STILL think it was just some large scale drill!!! You cannot tell them otherwise! They will believe that the DEA, FBI, NYSP, and OCSD chose our little town for some huge scale drug bust drill before they'll believe that we actually have enough of a drug problem to warrant the bust. I mean, we're talkin big black SUVs, Agents storming the school, searching every room, every locker, Front page news in almost a Tri-County area, and our lil small town paper just had some blurb buried in the pages somewhere.

I know the lady who runs the food bank here in town. She's an LOL (little old lady) in her 70s, and a few years ago she could name off at least 30 Crack houses. I know a woman who's daughter was getting AFU on crack or meth or something while living with the guy who ran one of these houses, and this woman would not admit that her daughter was doing drugs, because we don't have those kind of drugs in this town...

God forbid that we ever have a murder in this town. People will be hiding in their basements with guns until they hear on their little emergency radios that the suspect is in custody. That'll be nice for Fire, PD, and Ambulance though... All the dingleberries will be in their basements and off the roads, where they normally drive like idjits.
But yeah, if we ever have a major crime in this town, people would not know what to do with themselves. Everybody is so used to their little closely knit little routines that if you threw a wrench it it, they'd be lost.

I know that is not unique to my town though. I think most small towns are like that, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. People need to live where they are comfortable. Walk main street, talk to all their acquaintances, and read the weekly paper to see how Betty and Shirley's Bridge Tournament went last Thursday. This is one of those towns that when we got our second stoplight, it was on the front page. Classic example, I know.

I will admit that a lot of the small town conveniences are nice.
You go to the hardware store looking for something, they'll bend over backwards to help you.
Pretty much anywhere you go, people will help anyway they can.
Everything is close together and you can get almost anything you need if you don't mind payin a few extra bucks.
We had a situation earlier this year where a woman from out of town had parked at the church next to the fire station because she had to build a big ol' wreath for a wedding later in the day. Now, the people at this church do not know parking etiquette at all. The FD/ambulance shares the parking lot with the church and on more than one occasion I've had to hang out at the station for up to an hour after a call because after all the normal parking spots are full, people just pull in and park in nice neat rows right down the middle of the parking lot, effectively blocking in whoever is parked properly. Well, that's what happened to this out of town girl. In the midst of her wreath building, she broke the foam that was her wreath base. So after starting to panic because her van was blocked in, she walked over to the hardware store, asking if the guy had this foam. He said no, but the lumber shop a few miles outside of town would probably have it, so he called ahead and sure enough, they did. She told him her car situation, he reached into his pocket, pulled out the keys to his truck, handed them to the woman, gave her directions to the lumber yard, and sent her on her way. He is lucky that she was genuine in her situation. She went, got her foam, came back, dropped off his truck, walked back over to the church, finished her wreath, and then wrote a very sweet sappy letter to the editor about our lovely little town. I'm sure it impressed the shit out of her. Probably was a shock to her to. Yes, it was a very nice gesture on the part of the hardware guy, but he's damn lucky she didn't take advantage of his generosity.
We are a small town, but not that small. I can see that happening somewhere else where you're way the heck out in BFE and everyone knows everyone within 50 miles, but that's not here.
Anyway. What else.
Oh yah. You know in Friday Night Lights and Varsity Blues when the teams go to State and the town is freakin empty? That's my town. A few years ago the Varsity team kicked some ass, wound up eventually losing late in the playoffs, but finished regular season 10-0
When the playoffs started and the team was going to play at the Carrier Dome, the town was EMPTY. The only places still open were the gas stations and the big grocery store. The grocery store employs many highschoolers, but the nights that the team was playin in Syracuse, they had a skeleton crew of older people. There were places that closed because they wanted to go to the game. I think someone said that somewhere around 1500 people went to the Dome those nights. That's better than half the population, folks. This place was almost a ghost town. It was eerie.

The son of the pastor of the church that my parents attend (Phew) was the star wide receiver.
One of the days that I went to church, during the music and prayer portion, the pastors wife stepped up, interrupted the music, and started praying for and "Exhorting" the football team, talking about how "we" were gonna win because 3 or 4 of the kids on the team went to our church, and because of that, God is on "our teams'" side, and we're gonna win state, and blahblahblah. I was just sittin there slack-jawed that someone could have the balls to interrupt a church service to root for the high school football team.
Someone asked her later "Mrs. Pastor's wife, what if the other team has a bunch of kids that go to church and they're all praying too?" to with Preachers wife responded with "Well, we'll just have to pray harder than them, I guess". I thought that that whole event in church was rude, disrespectful, and absolutely ridiculous. There's a time and a place for that stuff, and it is NOT during a Sunday worship service.

Lets see... Oh yah. They had a bomb threat at the high school, so they ushered all the kids into the auditorium and locked them in there until the rest of the school was cleared. I don't believe the auditorium had a sweep first, either.
This is also the same school that put padlocks and chains on all of the emergency exits after that school shooting where the kids pulled the fire alarm then started pegging people as they went out of the fire exits.

If you live in the town instead of the village, and you have to go into the village, it is usually referred to as "Going downtown". Rome is referred to as "The City" and Utica is referred to as "The Big City". Most ppl from this town would not even dream of going to Syracuse. My sister vols about 15-20 miles north of Syracuse and her friends and the ppl at my parents' church were trying to talk her out of it once they found out that she has to transport to Syracuse hospitals.
(Airheads) "Ohmigawd!!! You have to go to Syracuse?!
(Stacey) "Yup."
(Airheads) "Do you have to go to Syracuse at night too, or just during the day?"
(Stacey) "Anytime, day or night."
(Airheads) "OHmiGAWD! Aren't you scared that you're gonna get shot?!?!"
(Stacey) "Uh, no."
(Airheads) "You don't, like, go outside alone at night at the hospitals, do you???"
(Stacey) "Uh, yeah. I was just sittin outside on a rail at 2 am at St. Joe's the other night."
(Airheads) "OHMIGAWD!!!! REALLY?! ARE YOU CRAZY?!"

They were even raggin on her about hanging around outside the ambulance garage at night because it is "so close" to Syracuse.

We know people who will not let their kids spend the night at friends houses
in Rome because "People get murdered in Rome all the time!!!"
For the record, Rome hasn't had a homicide yet this year.

And last but not least, this town hates young people. DWI is viewed as less of a crime than skateboarding (The cops harass the skaters all the time, whether they're doing anything wrong or not) The town has made no attempt to accommodate anything for younger people (the only things even remotely close to entertainment is the Bowling Alley on the other side of town, and then the bars for the older crowd) They had started up a skate park, but it was tucked in way behind the DOT garage where it was quite hidden and never advertised, and then it was closed due to "Lack of interest." I've heard many younger people make comments like "They should just turn this place into a gated community" or "Why don't they just fence this town in and put up big signs saying 'NO KIDS ALLOWED!!!'"

Am I bitter? Maybe. Am I anti-social? I don't think so. Am I out of place? Yes. From my front porch, I can see 12 other houses. That's 12 too many. I'd rather have a nice, snug place in the middle of the woods on a 250 acre plot of land, 2 miles from the nearest neighbor. Again, I'm not anti-social. I can be quite social. I just prefer peace, quiet, and privacy. If I'm feelin the social bug, I'll go somewhere to satisfy the urge. I don't want the urge to be fed through my front window.

So to end this, let us raise our glasses to the N.Y. Yankees (for the record, I was rootin for the Red Sox just to piss ppl off), Small town Football (congrats to the team, cuz it was the best they've ever done... I just didn't get wrapped up in the craze) and to excessive apathy; may no one invade your perfect little world.