Tag Archives: small towns

Small Towns in the Fifties

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Small Towns in the Fifties

Tight pants were forbidden. Baggy trousers were the rule.
And if you ever broke it, they sent you home from school.
Even the most nervy girls didn’t take the chance
to show up in assembly wearing sexy pants.

There were no vivid colors in our little town.
The houses that weren’t painted white for sure were tan or brown.
All the local color resided in its folks.
Their foibles and their oddities comprised the local jokes.

Gullible new arrivals were sure to take the lure
and all the timeworn stories, therefore have to endure.
The time that Arlan Boe did this and Ellen Jones did that.
The time that Shirley Carson put Bon Ami in Dolph’s hat.

The trick that old Jeff Halverson played on the new teacher.
Crank phone calls that the Watts boys made to the new Baptist preacher.
It seems rules of propriety extended just so far.
In a small town what you look like matters more than what you are.

 

Prompt words today are baggy trousers, lure, forbidden, nervy and brown. (The names and acts are all fictional, although the message perhaps is not.)

Townsfolk

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Townsfolk

We always exchange greetings when passing on the street,
but we do not instigate Facebook, Skype or tweet.
All the modern hustle, the messaging and sassing
does not pass between us. We’re merely friends in passing.

 

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Words of the day are exchange, hustle, and instigate.

Private Lives

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I’m presently spending three months in a small beach town in Mexico where I’ve come every summer for the past six years or more. Tonight I went to the readers’ theater production of “Sylvia.” At the play, when they sounded the 5 minute bell during the intermission, I went to the ladies room.  Right after I entered, the announcer said over the microphone, “As soon as the restrooms empty out, we will begin.”  Then, as I was sitting there thinking I had plenty of time, I heard, “As soon as Judy DB joins us, we can begin!”  I ran water on my hands, drying them on my pants as I ran out of the bathroom and to my seat.  As I sat down, I heard someone say, loudly, “At least she washed her hands!” No such thing as privacy in a small town. I guess I’m a local now.

By the way, the photo above isn’t really of the ladies room at the theater. I just couldn’t resist using my favorite bathroom shot of La Mosca one more time.  To hear the story behind La Mosca, go HERE.