Ole Pappy
Got a letter from Cheri Reynolds of St. George, Utah ... a faithful reader of the Mascot. Her maiden name was Cheri Merritt.
She was recently going through boxes of memorabilia and found an old Mascot column about Small Town Life that was submitted for publication by Bob Nelson, who at the time was working for First National Bank of Minneota.
“I have no idea how many years have gone by since Bob dropped this by the Mascot, but after reading it once more, I thought it might be fun to re-run it as I don’t imagine things have changed all that much,” she said. “Like many others who were raised in Minneota, I enjoy staying in touch through the Mascot.
Great job. I often wish our local paper, The Spectrum had the talents your paper reflects,” she added. So Cheri, I’ve decide to use most of them and add some of my own to help make it a little more fun.
So here goes ... Small Town Life ... You always know you live in a small town when:
•Everyone knows what happened in town but they buy the local newspaper to see if the editor found out about it.
•When your walking down the street you better wave to the car passing by, even if you don’t know who it is, because you’re going to hear about it.
•You make a U-turn anywhere you want to.
•You don’t use your turn signal because everyone knows where you’re going.
•You run into the ditch outside of town and word about it gets back to town before you do.
•For fun, people drive up and down main street.
•There are no community events because the school gym is being varnished.
•You call the wrong number and talk for two hours anyway.
•There are no stop lights in town.
•Everything you could possibly want is in walking distance.
•Every time there is a death in the community, the family gets more hot dishes than they could ever eat.
•Everyone greets each other by their first name.
•You can’t go anywhere without running into someone you know. •Everything closes by 9 p.m.
•The night of the football game, you can find everyone you know at the game.
•When a store closes, it’s like a funeral.
•Traffic is the last thing on your mind. The last time there was a traffic jam it was because a family of ducks were crossing the road.
•You still have a Blacksmith in town.
•Every time you see the newspaper editor he has a camera hanging around his neck.
•You can’t go for a walk because everyone offers you a ride.
•Sooner or later someone will get a letter delivered to them that has only the recipients photo and the name of the town on it. Oh yes, the post office will deliver it.
•Everyone who goes to church always sits in the same pew.
•The top photo in the newspaper was of a little kid trying to hit a ball off the stand. The next photo is of all nine defenders running to where the ball is hit and jumping on it. They call this T-Ball.
•Football practice begins and almost as many people as go to the games come to the practice.
That’s All Folks!!!
LAUGH A LITTLE: Don’t trust these titles: Choosing a movie? Don’t trust these extremely abbreviated plot explanations.
• The Lord of the Rings: Group spends nine hours returning jewelry.
• Titanic: Everyone tries the ice-bucket challenge.
• Beauty and the Beast: Stockholm syndrome works.
• The Chronicles of Narnia: Kid comes out of the closet. (Joke from Reader’s Digest)
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK: As my Ole Pappy used to say, “If you make money your God — it will plague you like the Devil!” Ole Pappy was right on with this one. He liked to spread the idea that, “Money is the root of all evil.” I always thought he had lots of money — but he just didn’t want to share it with me. But I was wrong, as always. Thanks Ole Pappy!