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kansasbrittany

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"Home" has been tugging at my heart strings lately. Home is a small KS town where a guy can dump a clip out of his .45 from his front porch; where if the geese are passing low enough, one or 2 may be harvested within the city limits. A couple covey of quail frequent the edges of town. Any interested parties can chase 'em around with the dogs or hunt 'em until they flush too close to someone's home. There's a band of ferrule chickens running about; occasionally someone gets a hankerin' for a chicken dinner and one loses its life at the crack of a .22. Yes, home is a free place, one that's been lost in time:thumbsup:

There are 4 families in the church since my family and I started attending some time ago. The pastor packs his .45 to every service. Every kid knows how to operate a firearm, how to read his/her bible, and how to catch/clean fish...EVERY kid. Every kid there also takes immediate heed when his/her father raises a voice to get their attention. Again, its a place that time seems to have left behind and that's more than okay with me.

Ride your 4-wheeler, your motorcycle, shoot your gun, whatever. If you leave everyone else alone they leave you alone and you can bet, no matter what's happening in your life, you'll have all the support you need. Its also a place where a guy can still get permission to hunt and fish, thanks to the perception our forefathers have left with the current generation of landowners.

The most concerning change back home is the aggressive land-grab that's taking place. A HUGE corporate cattle business is buying everything it seems and man does their land...ugly. Its a parking lot:(

Still, everything else about the place is so appealing to a fella like me. The more I visit the more I miss it and the more I see houses I could nearly pay cash for, in a place where folks still know true freedom, the more I miss it. Wouldn't it be something to move back to the place I wanted so desperately to get away from just 10 short years ago;)

I've always been a bit of a sentimental sap. Tell me about your relationship with "home", wherever that may be and whatever that may mean to you. Did you move back? Did you ever leave in the first place? Either way, what drove your decision?
 
KB, I grew up there! Was a crick just out of town that I caught my first beaver, mink, coon, and bullheads in. We let the 57 Chevy pickup drive itself in granny low while we picked up beer cans in the ditch for extra cash! Some Saturday nights we'd light trash cans ablaze by the CO-OP and shoot rats in the firelight! I could walk from town and limit on pheasants on the railroad tracks! If we wanted to target practice, we'd walk out to the dump and ravage cans and bottles with our .22's. For bait, we'd go down where the street drains dumped out and dig worms by the hundreds in the wet soil. Home is a good place!
 
Prairie Drifter said:
KB, I grew up there! Was a crick just out of town that I caught my first beaver, mink, coon, and bullheads in. We let the 57 Chevy pickup drive itself in granny low while we picked up beer cans in the ditch for extra cash! Some Saturday nights we'd light trash cans ablaze by the CO-OP and shoot rats in the firelight! I could walk from town and limit on pheasants on the railroad tracks! If we wanted to target practice, we'd walk out to the dump and ravage cans and bottles with our .22's. For bait, we'd go down where the street drains dumped out and dig worms by the hundreds in the wet soil. Home is a good place!
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Perfect! Thanks for replying!

Even the 57 Chevy truck.....:eek:

Christmas afternoon, after the boys were each gifted a new .22 rifle by grampa, we went straight to "the dump" with them. 2 weeks ago my boys got to visit the glass dump (a place for those who still burn their trash to leave their bottles). Show me a young boy who doesn't enjoy breaking glass without the fear of punishment and ________. If you'd said "shoot a limit of quail on the railroad tracks" then I would'a been convinced we grew up in the same town.
 
All the retired folks in town sat by their windows in trapping season to see what we would drag home each morning. Not too many kids would get up at 4 in the morning to check traps before school, then go back after basketball practice to reset or add sets. I recall going to a party after being sprayed by a skunk on the line. I kept just far enough away from folks that they kept blaming it on something "outside":) Plenty of stories generated in a small town (home)!
 
These are very interesting reflections on small town USA. I grew up in a small Illinois town, until age 8, but didn't have some of the experiences written here - truly facinating!

My wife grew up in Mobridge, SD and to this day, she loves small-town cafe's for a meal vs a large expensive establishment. Grumpy's Bar in St. Bonifacius - best pizza in miles.

The cafe's in Miller, SD always had interesting character's meeting for morning coffee, to discuss "stuff." Small town life: hard to beat!
 
There was a bunch of guys that would skinny dip in the river and it was never an issue. (Oh, might have hand fished just a little too). Caught bull frogs off the railroad trestle with the red cardboard off a matchbox on a hook.

Took my dad's shotgun to school to reblue it in class with the teacher's assistance.

Shot dove of a morning before the school bus arrived.

Ran a lot of bank lines and trout lines.

Held a baby skunk by the tail.
 
all GREAT stories....I kind of lived this in reverse order...lol.... I am originally from NJ.....spent a lot of time in NYC....was in the rock n roll world for a very long time.....used to love big crowds and the big city hustle and bustle....but I grew up hunting....used to feed pheasants in our backyard in NJ actually....used to hunt wild quail when there were still wild quail to hunt in NJ...that was a LONG time ago.....now...I live in a small farm town in IL.....traffic is being stuck behind a tractor .....we shoot guns in the yard....coyotes howl from about 50 yards away....quail are right down the street....THIS is the only way to live. and if you turn your amps up LOUD and play your guitars...nobody calls the cops...lol now when I have to travel for music or whatever...I can't wait to get back to my sleepy little town in the country.
 
KB, great post and you really "painted a nice picture" of your youth and small town Kansas.
Like Rascal, I too grew up in NJ so things were quite different. I did get to hunt and fish since my dad worked for someone who had 1000 acres in the northern tip of NJ; my dad and I would go up to their place 1 or 2X a month. They raised pheasants there to sell to local hunting clubs and of course for themselves. Often and I was handed a .22 or a shotgun to go out and shoot/plink and take care of the escapees. Many days and nights spent fishing for small mouth bass on their ponds. Some great memories of time spent in the "wild" with my dad.
There were some wild pheasant along the NJ/PA border that we chased and the state did a good job of stocking birds but I did not like the opening day experience on state land; people would line up along the road several people thick and at 8 AM a whistle was blown and it reminded me of Vietnam. You could "hear" pheasants flying off in the distance by the string of shots that were fired identifying the flight path of the bird. Did opening day once and that was it for me.
Now I am fortunate to live in the NC mountains but still in a more urban area. We do have hundreds of thousands of acres of national forest just minutes from home so I do get to spend time out in the wild with my boys camping, hiking, fishing and hunting but it sure isn't like the hunting in Kansas. No pheasants around here; a few grouse to be found and that keeps my Britt tuned for the few days I get to spend in the wonderful state of KS.
Folks, hang on to what you have out there, it is a wonderful place and my can be found in the fields of the great Mid West!
Cheers to all!
Wolf
 
Home is where I still am.

Home is having a teacher for which I was a student aide letting me go early just to get a jump on dove season.
Home is a quick three minute drive to a favorite hunting spot.
Home is going to a high school football or basketball game and inevitably talking hunting or fishing.
Home is being able to join random people at lunch table.
Home is asking a farmer for permission to hunt his land and spending an hour talking about what's going on 'round town.
Home is going to the coffee shop and losing an hour of my morning sitting with all of the retired guys.
 
Maynard, you bring up a good point. When I was in school, everyone had their guns in their vehicles-unlocked by the way. After school, we would compare guns with the teachers and faculty!
 
CharBroiled said:
Home is where I still am.

Home is having a teacher for which I was a student aide letting me go early just to get a jump on dove season.
Home is a quick three minute drive to a favorite hunting spot.
Home is going to a high school football or basketball game and inevitably talking hunting or fishing.
Home is being able to join random people at lunch table.
Home is asking a farmer for permission to hunt his land and spending an hour talking about what's going on 'round town.
Home is going to the coffee shop and losing an hour of my morning sitting with all of the retired guys.
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Amen, brother! Thanks for remembering the small town BS table! My first hometown wasn't big enough for a BS'n table as there was no establishment to serve someone coffee. Well, we live in a "big town" now. It has 1 flashing stop light, a gas station, a liquor store, and even a restaurant. We can still ride 4-wheelers in town here, but shooting your gun and/or chasing birds with bird dogs is frowned upon within the city limits. With 680 people, its the most populated place I've lived in for more than a couple of months:thumbsup:

So, my current home is much like what you've described and its pretty cool in its own right. I join random people for lunch down at the gas station almost daily.

Rascal, PD, Maynard, CB, Wolf, thanks for chiming in. I truly enjoyed your posts. johhnyb, I too am a big fan of the small town burger joint:10sign:
 
Gotta love small towns! I grew up in one and am raising my kids in one (although a little bigger). They are awesome because you can jump on your bike with your buddies and go wherever you wanted. Be home in time for lunch and supper and that was it. We'd climb to the top of the grain elevator and the water tower once we got older. You'd walk into the gas station after a basketball game and Frank (the owner) would tell you to grab a coke on him because "we" won tonight. Moved off to college and still would do the "one finger wave" from the top of the steering wheel, my college buddies would laugh every time I did it. Some habits are hard to break.
 
Wow, these are great stories. I grew up in a small town in Utah and I wish my boys had the same opportunities now. We would jump on our bikes in the morning and spend the entire day riding around town, out to the pond to catch tadpoles, over to the canal to swing on the Tarzan swing, down to the gas station to get a pop, etc... and as long as we were home by supper time, nobody's parents blinked an eye. When we got older we traded in the bikes for 4 wheelers, which meant we could go farther and bring along a fishing pole or a .22 (back when .22 shells were available!). I brought a few deer home on that 4 wheeler to a pretty proud dad. When we were old enough to drive we all had various '70's model 4 wheel drives with full gun racks. I once went on a double date that involved one of the girls driving while the other held the spot light so we could shoot rats at the dump!
I take my son out to Smith Center every year for the pheasant hunt and he is amazed with how nice everyone is. He is constantly asking me, "Do you know that guy?" after I get done talking to a random resident for 30 minutes at the gas station or the local burger joint about the football team, the weather, all the damn deer or just life in general. He also smiles everytime we pass someone going the opposite direction and they wave.
I love and miss small town USA.

Rut
 
jonnyB said:
These are very interesting reflections on small town USA. I grew up in a small Illinois town, until age 8, but didn't have some of the experiences written here - truly facinating!

My wife grew up in Mobridge, SD and to this day, she loves small-town cafe's for a meal vs a large expensive establishment. Grumpy's Bar in St. Bonifacius - best pizza in miles.

The cafe's in Miller, SD always had interesting character's meeting for morning coffee, to discuss "stuff." Small town life: hard to beat!
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GOOD GRIEF!GRUMPIES Have been ther a couple of times but it has been a while. My Grandson caught a 52" muskie in Waconia in Sept.
 
Small world, Buck!

Only fish I can recall catching from lake Waconia were sheephead and small crappies. Congratulation to your nephew - didn't know there were Muskies in the lake.
 
I grew up in Mitchell, SD. Technically we were not suppossed to hunt alone until 16, I beleive, but with permission was doing it at 13. We would walk out of town a few blocks with our .22 s or shotgun and walk the tracks, ditches and open fields for rabbits and pheasant. Took the dog (hunting cocker) and rode my bike some too. In high school are guns were always in the car or truck for after school road hunting. No problem. We made gunracks in shop.
Jackrabbits were $.75 to a $1.00 and a box of shells were 50 cents. Actually made $. The mink breeders feed them to the mink and they lined gloves and mittens with the fur. I always got a brick of long rifles for Xmas and they were all gone when the snow melted. I had a Remington 241 auto and could "get the lead out". Still have it. Lake Mitchell was a walk, bike trip or hitch hick away to fish or swim. Learned how to fish there. Walleyes, largemouth, crappie, blugills, catfish, northerns---pretty much everything.
 
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