In October, I went back to my small home town in Oklahoma, where many generations of my family have grown up. We go way back in this little town on the prairie!
For those who may not know, this is where Ree, the Pioneer Woman, goes when she heads to “town”. You’ve seen her photos of the prairie, so I thought it would be fun to show you a bit of the city life. So put on your boots and let’s go to town ya’ll!
With a total of about 3,500 people, you can see how bad the traffic jams can get. I did get stuck behind a blue haired lady who kept stopping and going again. This caused my trip to town to take an entire five minutes instead of two!! The nerve of some people!
My friend, Pete Lacker, shot this photo for a musician’s CD cover. You can see how wild it gets a night.
One thing for sure about a small town is you usually know everyone and some are even related. Meet one of my cousins, Phillip. Don’t you just love his style?
We saw Cousin Phillip on our trip to the best hamburger joint in town.
Not much room inside, but my kids got the best spot… right in front of the grill! They had a ball sitting at the bar. Very different from the bars in Dallas! I think the 5 customers enjoyed having them there too:-)
This is what I miss most about small towns…
Oh yeah, look at that homemade chocolate pie! yum!
Of course my mom had to show off her cute grandkids at work.
My son had fun playing mayor and eating M & M’s from the candy machine.
Here’s the house where I grew up and where mom still lives. See the tree in the top right corner? I have a photo of all the neighborhood girls wearing prom dresses next to that tree and it was shorter than us. Wish I had that photo, but it’s in this house you’re looking at now.
The kids got to pick veggies in Grandma’s garden.
Then it was time to get in our costumes and go to Halloween night at the Kiddie Park!
The Kiddie Park is in a nearby town and has probably been around as long as me.
All rides are only $.25 each!
Lots of really old rides that go VERY fast. My kids love it!
One of the man clowns made my 80 year old Grandma a balloon way too nasty to put on my blog. Can you guess what it was? I don’t think I’ve seen her blush like that in a long time! ha. Hint: it looked like a mini sword… I really couldn’t look at my son’s sword the same way all night:-)
This is my son’s attempt at taking the four generations of women photo. See what happens when you’re 5 and have been eating sweets at Grandmas all weekend!
I took advantage of the grandmas and escaped to my alma matter, Oklahoma State University, for some homecoming fun. It was great to be without children for a day and see old girlfriends!
Hope you enjoyed a quick tour of my hometown.
Thanks mom, Aunt Tricia and Grandma for making our trip so much fun. We hope to come back again real soon.
What a great tour. I’d love to spend more time in a place like that. I’m in Houston btw. Lots of Oklahoma folks down here too.
Your post about the traffic reminded me of the very small town my grandparents lived in in South Georgia.
There were only probably a few stop lights in the whole town back then (thirty something years ago). But she would get so mad if she had to stop at a redlight. When she would come home from shopping at Piggly Wiggly that was part of the report. How many redlights she had to stop at. I’m thinking…What else do you have to do???
Thanks for sharing your hometown.
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Joy
Joy Brasington’s last blog post..Another Happy Pig Award
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Fun tour! Thanks for taking us to Smalltown, America! I love it! Either I’ve been to your little town before or it looks just like another. Those streets look awfully familiar!
Enjoy your BATW day!
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What a great hometown! This looks like so much fun…. for a small town!
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What a very charming tour of your hometown! I enjoyed every minute spent there.
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Stopping from BATW.
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I want to go there! What a wonderful town, with so much personality!
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Thanks for leaving this link on my blog. I am originally from Atlanta, Georgia but am now living in a town smaller than your home town (just over 2,000 people – and that is probably including the prison population – yikes). It has been quite the culture shock for me; however, I love how family oriented everything tends to be. It is a great place to raise the kiddos. I just miss all the conveniences of big-city-life : )
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lovely trip to your hometown!!
rajani’s last blog post..Welcome to Dubai
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I’m from Kansas, which is almost like Oklahoma.
I enjoyed the tour – thanks for sharing your home town with us!
Lynnette
Lynnette’s last blog post..Project: Simplify my Life!
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I dream of moving to a small town. But maybe I’ve been watching too much Gilmore Girls. I love your photo tour!! And that pie, oh my, so decadent.
Reeni’s last blog post..I’m In Love!
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that is fabulous! i want to know what small town you grew up in . i’ve been in small town oklahoma and LOVE it. i spent some time in claremore and even smaller cleveland. those towns have their own kind of excitment —like draggin main street on a friday night. or the cattle run right down mainstreet….those are serious memories for me! thanks for helping me
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Hey thanks everyone for stopping by today! This is so much fun. I forget that not everyone is from a small town. We also have street dances, parades with cattle and people riding horses, rodeos and Indian dances. It really is a whole other world!! ha.
There is also a small lake surrounded by hills, so the water is like glass. We had a boat dock and I went skiing just about every weekend. Nothing else to do since there was no mall or movies. We used to have a drive-in movie theater, but was only open on certain nights.
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That looks like such a cool town! I may have to visit just for the pie! Yum!
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I’m a Big City girl, but, it’s always fun to visit a small town. Thanks for the tour. How much fun.
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Oh man, that pie! I swear that’s the kind my mom makes. A pudding type chocolate pie with merengue? I’ve NEVER seen anyone else make it. Now I’m craving some badly. I’m going to have to come visit this adorable small town!
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What a great tour, and what a great town!
Happy BATW day!
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Looks like a fun town to me! Thanks for sharing that, it was really interesting.
Happy BATW day today!
Betty’s last blog post..Wordless Wednesday
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Hi Amy! Thanks for putting up the BATW greeting…I knew that everyone would love this post…it is fabulous! Thanks again for letting me use it today!
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Oh Amy!
What a sweet post. Even tho I’m CA-suburbia born and bred, I swear I was really meant to be a small-Southern-town girl – the kind of “town” that’s in all my favorite Southern novels. ;-P
Thanks for the delightful tour!
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Great town – thanks for sharing this with us. Reminds me of some of the small coastal towns here in SA.
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What a lovely little town! Wish we only had a population of 3500 …. life would be a lot simpler.
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Thanks for sharing the pcitures of your hometown. Makes me realize that i’ve been in sin city way too long! It looks so quiet and peaceful there.
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Woot Woot for OSU! Go Pokes!!! I’m from Oklahoma…a town of about 1200 people – Geary!! Hooray for the small town gals! I loved the Eskimo Joes sweatshirt in the pic…Those pictures made me a bit homesick – it was so nice to get some Oklahoma today. I’m in DC now, and I sure do miss the small town sometimes!!!
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Love it! There’s no place I’d rather be than in small town USA…
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Coming from BATW … reading a post like this makes me want to pack up all our stuff and move to where it’s quieter and slower and friendlier.
Love how you described your town!
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Wonderful post! I’ve really enjoyed the tour – thank you so much for sharing those moments from your trip back home.
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