Big City, Small Town

If you are from a small town, whether it be in the Sandhills of Nebraska or the north of Saskatchewan, you experience the world differently than folks from the big cities, like New York or Toronto.

Small town folks learned to drive at 11. Big city folks likely don’t own a car and if they have a license to drive they got it in their 20s or 30s.

Small town folks are most comfortable with their legs swinging from the rear end of a pickup truck. Big city folks depend on public transportation – a bus, subway or Uber ride – to get to the newest “in” place.

In a small town the mayor used to be your gym coach and the checker at the grocery store was last year’s prom queen. Big city folks have to tell their country cousins that they have not met that famous person who lives in their city. The country folks believe their city cousins are constantly kicking it with the rich and famous.

Small town folks knew the name of every person in their high school graduating class. Big city folks have no idea who most of their 700 fellow graduates were.

Getting mentioned in the local weekly paper is akin to winning an Oscar for small town folks. If the big city daily mentions someone, that’s nearly as bad as being the subject of a wanted poster on the post office wall.

In a small town, the cop who just pulled you over used to be your babysitter. In the big city, the cop that starts asking you questions is looking for someone like Jack the Ripper.

Small town folks might start their out-of-the-nest residency in a roomy 95-year-old farmhouse that they rent for $350 a month. Big city folks settle into an 800 square foot apartment for around $1,000, or more, per month.

Living in one-bedroom apartments and studio spaces in the big city doesn’t make for an ideal living situation for a dog. At most you can hang out with a cat. When you see someone walking around the park with a basset hound, you can’t help but wonder what palace they must live in. In a small town, your two dogs and three cats have plenty of space – inside and out – to roam.

The Statue of Liberty, Royal Ontario Museum and Shedd Aquarium are all amazing places to visit – for small town folks. Big city folks haven’t been yet and aren’t that interested in going.

To note that the neighborhood is really changing in a big city means you just got back from vacation and found that construction on a 12-story luxury condo building has started on your block. In the small town, change means that a kid from a town 10 miles away has just moved into the apartment above the drug store.