Our stories of life in small towns keep coming in to my desk (not really; they come in to my computer, along with photos of cute kittens and, lately, praise for LSU’s national champion women’s basketball team). But saying “to my desk” makes it sound like I have a real job.
Anyhow, here’s a story from Mary Pramuk, of Baton Rouge:Â Â Â
“When we lived in a small town in upstate New York, I embarrassed a man I met at a festival who claimed to know every city and town in the state.
“I said, ‘Newark Valley?’ He looked puzzled. He could not find it on his New York map.
“It was small, but had most things you would expect: one traffic light, one doctor, a grocery store, a bank, schools, library, etc. (The gas station went out of business.)
“We shopped at Bill and Velma’s used and antique store. The aged Bill liked to share the town’s history.
“Chuckling, he’d say, ‘This is a dry town.’ Then, slapping his hip (where the flask would go), he’d declare, ‘But lots of wet hips!’ (There was a bar just over the town line.)”
Which reminds me
As a native of Natchez, Mississippi, a wet town in a dry state, I became aware at an early age of an interesting phenomenon:
It seems every dry county in the state had a wet county (or at least a well-known bootlegger) within easy driving distance.
As has often been said about Prohibition, you can make drinking illegal, but you can’t make it unpopular.
Thanks, Daddy
“I grew up in the small town of Dunn, North Carolina, (population about 8,000) in the 1940s,” says Lucy Sloan.
“We lived in a Victorian-style house with a large wrap-around front porch overlooking the main street. As a teenager, my girlfriends would come over in the afternoons and we would sit on the porch drinking Cokes and waving at boys going by.
“When we got tired of flirting, we would walk downtown to the department stores and try on hats and dresses. If I saw something I wanted, I would just say, ‘Charge it to my daddy’ and take it home, no questions asked. They never sent bills, but the next time he was in the store he would pay up.
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