Small Town Recollections

To quote Mellencamp:

"Well I was born in a small town
And I can breathe in a small town
Gonna die in this small town
And that's prob'ly where they'll bury me"

I had the weirdest dream last night. Well, it was more like a night memory than dream, really, because I was back in high school in the small town I grew up in. A smattering of recollections of situations that obviously were burned enough in my psyche to reappear when I'm dreaming.

Growing up in a small town, we made our own weird fun. Taking into account it snowed 9 months out of the year, we were resourceful. And goofy. And a bit reckless.

Following are just a few of the insane things we did to amuse ourselves:

1. My friend had a 1971 brown Gran Torino, nicknamed The Turd. It was this exhaust-belching bucket of pure American steel, smelled of Marlboros and Lauren perfume, and I'm pretty sure it didn't come with seatbelts. One foggy night, after a party in an even smaller town out in the sticks, we drove 90 mph to get back to town to make our curfews. Thinking back, we were pretty lucky we made it, having dodged kamikaze deer and random roadkill in dense fog.

The Turd


2. My friend Nicole was very uptight, and we teased her about this on a regular basis. One night, to prove us all wrong, she went bananas and let her freak flag fly. She jumped out of the car on main street (yes, we cruised main), and laid on the dividing line and sang "When Doves Cry" while cars sped past on either side of her, honking at the crazy girl. After that, she climbed a power line almost to the top, smack in the middle of town. Then, to top it off, she got in the hot jocks car and cruised one lap of main without pants. She was never teased again.

Not Nicole, but it's pretty close


3. No matter how cold it was (well, anything below -20 windchill was our limit) we never turned away an outdoor party. These were usually held on someone's land, and there always seemed to be a fire going next to a kwanset hut. We called these Kwanset Hut parties. Clever, I know. We would stand around shivering, sipping our beers through chattering teeth and numb lips, having a grand ol' time.

Kwanset Hut


4. We were so intent on getting our party on, we would cross the border to Wibaux, Montana where there was this country bar who didn't check ID's. We would let the cowboys buy us PBR and dance with them to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Fishin In The Dark". I was never into country music, but I still remember all of the lyrics to this day. And Cowboys are gentlemen.