Replies

At the risk of giving away my top secret location I'll mention that here we have a single restaurant named, believe it or not, "Toot 'n Tell It" (which refers to the fact that they once had a drive-thru window, and they wanted drivers to toot their horn before placing an order.). Every day at lunch time their very large parking lot is filled to overflowing. Inside, in one corner, you'll find the Mennonites (in fact, they did all my amazing concrete work), in another are the farmers who seem compelled to shout out the going price of beans every time they walk in the door, and in another are grandparents with their sweet little grandkids (one little girl, in particular, could give Shirley Temple a run for the money).

And everybody here either knows you by your first name or by your nickname.

The skyscrapers of years past have been replaced with grain silos.

Every Saturday, if you want to go to the hardware store, you have to race against the noon testing of the city tornado siren, because that's when the hardware store closes.

Every forth Friday the firetrucks get moved out of the firehouse to make room for the professional wrestling troupe that comes in. Some of those fire trucks are classics from the 50's and 60's, and are in excellent condition.

The trick here is to not become so popular that you end up having to pick toilet paper out of your trees the morning after Halloween.

And, if you feel tempted to hire young Bishop to move some bricks around your property, forget it! Word's out that his upper body workout is not up to par.

Such is life in the hinterlands of rural West TN!

Loved your reply. TP in the trees. Doesn’t happen here much after October. Snow and all.

The description of your town is spot on.

I see the same people everywhere I go in town. Always pleasant, always kind. It wasn’t that way in Minneapolis.