Small Town Identity

As I've mentioned before, here and here, I moved to California when I was seventeen to live with my grandparents and go to school for Marine Biology (which didn't happen). I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.  We have the perfect weather all the time.  I'm super close to beaches or  anywhere else you could possibly want to go.  And I'm surrounded by some great people.

That doesn't change the fact that I miss the town that I grew up in sometimes.  Unless they are New York City, San Francisco or some other large city, big cities kind of lose their identity.  There are so many people who live here that you kind of become invisible.  Nobody cares about you, or recognizes you at the grocery store.  Most of the time, you don't even talk to your own neighbors. 

I grew up in a small town in Ohio. 

Population: 8,000

2 grocery stores.  

8 Pizza Parlors

1 Hospital

6 Elementary schools (only one now since they condensed them into one building). 

1 Jr. High School

1 High School

Lots of Brick

The point is, the main part of town was about a mile from one end to the other.  The rest was farm land.  Everybody knew everybody.  You had a place in the community, unlike in a more urban setting.

During the fall, football consumed our town, like most midwest/southern towns and their high school football.  If you have ever seen Friday Night Lights, you get what I'm talking about!

All of the shop windows would be painted with encouragement for the team, throughout downtown.  Everybody would be at the game on Friday. 

Our town had an identity.  A mascot even, because there was only one high school and everybody identified with it.  Everyone had their place. 

It's not like that in bigger cites and sometimes, I kind of miss being the Grocery Store Cashier's Daughter.  Especially during Fall.