The other day when I was in too much of a hurry to let the smokin' hot x-ray tech student slip me her phone number, she and I happened to be talking about the places we had in common along the Italian Riviera. I mentioned in passing that back in the day, some of my less enlightened shipmates had a propensity to limit their cultural immersion on liberty.
In other words, once they debarked at Fleet Landing, their list of places to visit was limited to two. McDonald's and the closest bar.
I've got nothing against McDonald's or bars, heaven knows, but in Italy? Or France? Greece? Spain? Israel? And the list goes on.
One of the really cool things to do, imo, was to find a nice hole-in-the-wall Mom & Pop restaurant, pull out a phrase book, and figure out how to say, "I'm hungry, please feed me." Memorable meals.
Now what does that have to do with a "small town with benefits?"
Pretty much nothing. Just a random thought pinging around in my head as I sat down to write. Or type. Or key. Whatever.
This morning I needed a particular tractor loader part. It's just a pin, but it's kind of a specialty item and tricky to source. I need it in order to finish a job that needs finishing. No loader, no finishing the job. No pin, no loader. Not a screaming emergency but I'd like to have it by next week. Failing that, whenever will actually be fine. I'll just have to put finishing the job off until later than I'd prefer. But it'll be okay.
I roll into the parts house. "Hey Dave, you remember that loader pin from a couple years ago?"
"158 on a 4240, right?"
Shit, it's my loader and I can't remember the numbers, I have to write them down on the back of my hand!
"Yeah."
"I found a place. Have it for you in the morning."
Five minutes later I roll into the hospital clinic. I've only just remembered to get a prescription refilled. I'd like to have it done by Friday but Saturday will work. Giving them a couple of days notice instead of waiting until the last moment is the polite and considerate way to go. At the counter I give the receptionist a scribbled note with my name, phone, the medication and dosage.
"It's no emergency, Friday or Saturday will be fine."
Before I'm halfway back out to the ranch my phone rings.
"It's Sharon from the clinic, I just called your refill in so you can pick it up any time."
It's one of the advantages of living in a small town. We may not be able to get scented tofu or the ever-popular black currant vaping sticks here, but I don't think many folks in the more populated areas can walk into a parts house and a medical clinic, spit out 20 words combined, and get a specialty part coming and a prescription refill arranged. In no more than 15 minutes.
It's pretty cool.
And leaves me plenty of time to move cows to the south unit.
Small town life is awesome.
ReplyDeleteWhen my unit when on a trip to Paris (hey, it was NATO, we did fun stuff), one of the civilians, a Norwegian, was a real laugh. Always wore a Minnesota Vikings ball cap ("my uncle is the mascot...") and the second day in Paris, he wanted to go to, you guessed it, McDonald's. He went there, the rest of us went to a hole in the wall bistro on the Left Bank.
Great memory.
It is indeed. Paris trips were always fun and interesting. Never went with a Viking though. I can see how a "furriner" would feel the tug of McDonald's, just as I would occasionally feel the urge to sample smelly fish with onions and chocolate in his homeland.
DeleteThanks for stopping by and commenting Sarge!
I like my Mac and cheese to be kind of dried out, moist, not soupy. Almost every town in Wisconsin has a Kwik Trip convenience store, and they have not good area. I quite often but my lunch there, in the way to work each night. You know that you live in a small town, when you walk into the Kwik Trip, and they tell you the Mac and cheese, is just the way you like it!
ReplyDeleteLast week, they messed up my lunch, in a way that cancelled itself out. Me in Trip now sells fried chicken, that is very good. One night, I bought a four piece chicken, and grabbed two mashed potatoes to go with it. When I opened them, one was full of Mac and cheese! No problem, I love Mac and cheese, so I are it. The next night, I was brown bagging, and stopped, and bought a tub of Mac and cheese, to go with my ham sandwiches. After microwaving to tub, marked Mac and cheese, I found it full of mashed potatoes and gravy! Mashed potatoes and chicken gravy is not bad, with ham and cheese sandwiches!
Ha -- that's a good story. And one of the joys of small town living. You know the people which prompts you to not go postal when they make simple mistakes. Over and over and over! And you learn the joy of frequently being surprised at what your food orders actually produce. Ham sammiches and mashed potatoes with chicken gravy sounds good!
DeleteThanks for stopping by and commenting Scott!
How thoughtful. Taking the cows south for the winter. It does get chilly up your way, so I guess every bit of latitude helps. Do you have some of the windbreak things- either old conex boxes or wooden types?
ReplyDeleteThank you and your rancher friends- we enjoyed some beef tonight, that comes farms, despite what yuppy food stores want people to thing.
John Blackshoe
They seemed to be thrilled to find themselves in tall ungrazed grass. We don't have any purpose-built windbreaks, but we do have strategically planted tree and shrub shelter belts which are astonishingly effective. Cows never lack wind shelter.
DeleteGlad you enjoyed some beef. It's a good, nutritional, and wholesome product. Which most people seem to know, judging by the number of disguised vegans who hit the burger joints on a weekly basis!
Thanks for stopping by and commenting John!
GI in Germany mid 60's a buddy and I had bicycles (farrhads). A 30 -45 minute ride took us to small villages where they seldom saw soldiers. Never had a bad meal in any of them. My buddy and I didn't do well in the downtown GI bars and often were standing in front of the First Sergeant explaining our poor choices.
ReplyDeleteConspicuously absent from my ribbons was the Good Conduct Medal.
It's important to have a balance of culture and fun! I could never quite bring myself to completely trust fellows who'd managed to acquire the good conduct. They either did a lot of arsch küssen or were drones, and you didn't want to be too close if they ever trat auf den Hahn.
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That is exactly why I loved living in small town USA. The hardware store was my favorite stop in town. I could hand them a note from the Cowman, scrawled on the back of Copenhagen can, and they would go get the part for me. If they weren't sure exactly which size etc. he was asking for they would give me a variety and tell me to drop the ones he didn't need back by next time I was in town.
ReplyDeleteCows are look'n good.
Yep, those kind of relationships are treasure hidden from a lot of people I fear. To be fair, I know that city folk often find something similar when they become established customers in certain realms. At the end of the day it's the people rather than the place, really. I happily pass on the tofu and vaping sticks in exchange for one stoplight and no lines.
DeleteCows had a good grazing season, and their owners are ecstatic with weaning weights and condition.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting Brig!
It's getting pervasive and worse all the time. As a small town boy my basic plan is whenever I meed a proud gargle party member I'll simply autocorrect them with a swift kick to the nether regions. Or if it's a girl I'll say something cutting about the bolts in her face.
ReplyDeleteYeah, having said that I immagine the good lord is gonna knock me down to stump size today. Part of the adventure.
Love small towns... For the same reasons! It's really bad when you go into the local cafe and the waitress beats you to the table and your coffee is already there. And 5 minutes later your order shows up... And you didn't even order... LOL
ReplyDeleteLittle known pleasures of living in America!
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My former abode was in a small town where what you speak of was once routine.
ReplyDeleteThere were two hardware stores and two variety stores ...we were a larger small town.
Then Walmart came to town.
All of the things we used to be able to get are only available online, if you can find them, or we could drive north to the county seat and have them ordered for us and then wait for the call to come north again to pick them up.
That's too bad, darn it. We're small enough to never get a walmart, so that's good. We did get a pamida which became shopko and then closed. They thought small town folks are really dumb but found out different. They had a trick of putting flashy sale stickers on the shelf fronts, stuff like "30% off, only $5.99!" But some of the small town idiots would pry off the sale sticker and find that the non-sale regular price was $3.99. Rubes. We might be backwards but you can't train us to be idiots. Well, not all of us. I always took my Mom with me so I'd be safe!
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