City life vs. country folk

I have been writing the entry while sitting in the passenger seat on a very very long road trip to do a small job with my hubby. As we are driving through this insanity called a city I have realized there are several things I do not miss living in the middle of nowhere.  The city has a lot to offer and provides a lot more entertainment than the sagebrush, but something’s make living in the sticks worthwhile.  Like going to the store for 1 thing that you have squeeze your way through the isles between an array of characteristic walmart shoppers only to stand in the check-out line for 2 hours to pay for it because of the 35 available stands only 1 is open. Being hounded by illegal immigrants lurching in parking lots the size of my small town trying to sell you 3 week old tamales made in the trunk of their cars with new corn skins put on them daily to hide the green.  By the time I get to my car I have yelled at at least 20 of them and called them a few names and realized that in the 15 minutes they have been harassing me they miraculously learned English and are now yelling and calling me a few names as I take out my cell phone and say “Hello Immigration”, they can run pretty fast to. I don’t miss Bumper to bumper traffic, horns honking, and fingers flying…down here people don't have bumpers and  actually wave and say hi as there driving down the road with both hands on the wheel, they eat breakfast and do their hair before they get in their cars and don’t have cell phones and will even pull over and let you go by, and the only birds flying are the ones in the air shitting on your car. I don’t miss those orange cones, never ending construction zones and getting cut off at 70 miles an hour on the freeway. There are no orange cones here, only ice cream cones. Road construction consists of putting new dirt or rocks on the roads and people do drive 70 but there are only 2 of them on the road and they are not racing.  I don’t miss cars bouncing and thumping and vibrating down the road so loud you can’t hear your own radio. The only thing down here that bounces and thumps down the road and is very loud is tractors and yes they do rattle your house when they drive by but after about 45 minutes they are past your house and if you don’t like it they can run you over. …lol I don’t miss impolite gangster looking kids with their pants around there knees talking like sailors with pictures and metal all over their bodies. The kids here actually wear clothes that fit, are taught to respect their elders, actually help their parents and are too busy outside to even own a video game….. When kids here want something to do they go swimming in the local rivers and reservoirs, they ride bikes, play with their dogs and/or siblings, they go play in the hills, tip cows, shoot stuff and only go home when they’re hungry…..I seriously have not seen a fat kid yet.  Another thing I don’t miss is the thick, smoggy, foul smelling city air that sticks to your lungs and has a bad taste. Now the air here is pretty aromatic with all the farms and dairies it doesn’t smell like roses but it’s clean, tasteless and I can see through it. And I don’t miss beggars. People standing on street corners asking for food or money. Their signs always say will work for food or money….but if you ask them to work they can’t they have an excuse like oh someone already offered me a job they are coming back but donations are welcome….I am sure they are. We saw an older lady standing by a parking lot holding a sign that read “disabled had 4 back surgeries please help”  If I was disabled and had 4 back surgeries there is no way in hell I could stand on my feet all day long and dance around flashing a sign. When we came out of the store we saw her across the parking lot getting into a Cadillac that was probably only a year or 2 old.  I’ve been looking for  a money making opportunity that isn’t already being done down here but I think if I did that people would just throw produce at me  and I might even get arrested just because the town cop has nothing better to do and the jail cell is collecting dust. Down here people actually work for their money even if it means shoveling shit, cleaning ditches, and selling produce on the roadside.  I don’t miss ugly gang graffiti on every building, fence or wall in town. The closest thing we have to graffiti is the so + so in a heart on the trees in the park. Down here gangs are just groups of friends hanging out having a good time. They have names though bubba jay, Billy Joe and Jim bob. They also have signs…they say “no trespassing violators will be shot survivors will be shot again” , “If you are found here at night…you will be found here in the morning”  and they mean it. They don’t wear certain colors but they all wear the same clothes…wrangler jeans and an old t-shirt and a sideways baseball cap.  They don’t care who is or isn’t in there gang but everybody is welcome and the initiation is who can drink the most beer and  has the highest 4x4. And if you ever wanna leave the gang that’s cool to your always welcome back anytime just bring beer.  And yes they have guns but they are legal, registered guns and they are never pointed at people (unless you ignored the above mentioned signs) only anything else that moves or flies.  They don’t steal either sooner or later you’ll take your junk to the dump and they’ll make good use of it.  They don’t act tough or threaten people either. With a 7mm hunting rifle who needs to be tough, and if piss them off they aren’t gonna threaten ya there just gonna kick your ass. They have gangs fights to but down here they call it mud wrestling, 4 wheeling, demolition derbying  and the rodeo.  I’d like to see them so called gangsters in the city compete with our gangs. The only thing down here with rings and marks on their bodies are the bulls and they get rode hard, whipped and tied up. And in the end there are no losers…everybody gets a beer

There are a few things I do miss about the city though.  Movie theaters with current movies and padded seats, ethnic restaurants. Haven’t had Chinese, Mexican or Italian in months.  Coffee… these people have never even heard of a cappuccino they boil their coffee in cast iron pots on the stove top and you can actually chew it.  Libraries with books for people who made it past the 5^th grade.  Radio stations….any music will do.  Drive through car washes that do the work for me. The car wash here has 2 bays complete with garden hose and they even provide towels and bottles of window cleaner at no extra cost. .  Newspapers with real news I have no idea what goes on out in the real world anymore. Our newspaper is about 3 pages thick and some of the recent headlines read as follows “free pressure pot gauge testing at the health dept”  “Mr jones motorhome caught fire while driving it to town for a safety inspection…it failed” “garden workshop..learn how to plant stuff” “job announcement:  canal worker, must have truck and boots” and the weather report : possible wind(it’s windy here every day ) sunshine unless its cloudy then it might rain. And an occasional getting hitched or just died announcement.   Good alcohol the liquor store is very small and you only have about 4 or 5 kinds to choose from and I think there all homemade. All our wonderful friends who are afraid to visit us in the sticks for fear of never finding their way back out. Bust most of all our family…they maybe dysfunctional but they are our kids, grand kids, sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews  and cousins,  all us nuts fell from the same tree and we love them all with all our hearts and miss them dearly.

4th of July country style

Well summer is half way over and we have survived our first 2 months living in the country,  And  I finally now where at in the country we call it 'Dinkley". Apparently our property sits on the border of two of the smallest towns you ever saw delta and Hinkley and this left the local mail officials scratching their heads for weeks.  Now these small town people aren’t that hard to confuse anyway but when your bedroom is one town and your kitchen is in another they are completely lost.  Which probably explains why it takes an envelope that’s coming from a few miles away weeks to find your mail box?  After much deliberation, a few calls to the state’s main post office, a case of Tylenol and determining which postal carriers junk yard truck had the least amount of miles  they  finally gave me an address and a mailbox. I like our mail carrier though he has only hit our mailbox a couple times and always  has a milk bone for our pup who meets him at the mailbox to shred our mail.   The garden is growing but barely.  It has been a battle between me, and the  rabbits, mice, crappy soil and scorching desert sun but  I’m winning with the help of a semi-automatic  22 caliber rifle , a psychotic  ½ Australian  Shepard ½ blue healer pup and 100 feet of hose.  I’m excited for the fall harvest , should hopefully be enough to fill at least 2 or 3 jars. 

It has been pretty hot but the house stays fairly cool ,  and the reservoir is just a few minutes away with plenty of shade and shore side tables it’s a great place to cool off and there only a few beer cans floating in there and only has the faint smell and color of the dairy up river.

We just celebrated our first Fourth of July here and it wasn’t to bad.  Sweet little old farmers who smell like their cattle gathered eggs and slaughtered their  pigs and made breakfast in the park. Served with silver dollar…..make that copper penny  pancakes and fresh squeezed orange juice kept on the only table in the sun right next to the milk. Right after  breakfast was the parade where most of the business on main street we nice enough to provide rusted lopsided chairs to keep you comfortable why you watch the parade. It was a nice parade and lasted almost a whole hour and consisted of every farm tractor in the county, every horse in the county, the local cop, the volunteer fire fighter, and the high school kids…all 5 of them.  At the end of the day there was a demolition derby the third one this year. This town celebrates everything by smashing up cars or havin a rodeo….probably cuz that’s all they know how to do. They are very resourceful to.  Just because you just beat the shit out of your car doesn’t mean its not still a good car…you just get some new plastic and duct tape for the windows and your good to go for months and years…..you can even reuse them at the next derby.  There is no junk yard here and the local auto part store carries lots of duct tape, super glue and bailing wire…all other parts are special order.

But that’s pretty much how all the businesses in town are. They’re all open different days of the month except the laundry mat which is open every day and also doubles as a gossip center for the old timers and a used clothing donation center if you take your eyes off your clothes for more than 3 minutes.  There are 2 grocery stores 1 of which usually has some fresh food at one time or another.  There’s a small café called the rancher that actually smells like a ranch and 1 little 2 bar stool tavern called curly’s   ran by a little old bald man in bib overalls and is very popular with the 80+ locals who sit and take turns for hours singing karaoke to Buck Owens which sounds similar to the same sounds heard at the local dairy.  Mother nature helped the derby this time. The only thing better than smashing up cars is doing it in the mud.  Drivers spit mud all over spectators hanging on to metal  fencing and sitting on metal bleachers…..not even flinching at the big ol bolts of lightning flashing overhead.  They were careful not to get mud on the fireworks that they were lighting with their cigarettes. The volunteer fire fighter was there for safety and the show was a success.  Andy by the time everybody got back to their trucks, 4 wheelers, and horses and got home the rain had them all cleaned up and they didn’t even have to take a bath.  Hope you all had a fun 4^th of July to.