small town = not bored

I grew up in a tiny.... teeny tiny town in south east Arkansas.  The town's population was (and still is) about 3,500 people.  There are high schools bigger than that.  We were 30 minutes from the nearest Wal-Mart, an hour and 1/2 from the nearest "good" mall (there was a super ghetto one in Pine Bluff, doesn't count), 30 minutes from the nearest movie theater or bowling alley.  When I was a kid, we had NO chain restaurants. 

No McDonald's, no Sonic, no nothin! 

We only had a couple of home-owned places to eat-- Troy's Drive In, The Domino Parlor, Burger Master (throw back!), Sahara, Matthews.... My hometown does have a Sonic and a Subway now!  Movin on up!!

When I think back to my childhood and adolescent years, I don't really remember being bored out of my mind though!  Somehow my friends and I always managed to find stuff to do. 

When I was little all the way through Junior High I rode bikes like a manic!  Bekah (my best friend) and I were always on a bike just thinkin we were cool.  Most of the time we were headed to meet up with one of her many boyfriends.... yes I did say HER boyfriends.  I could never get a boy to like me until about the 8th grade.  But Bekah...... she was a different story.  Everybody liked Bekah!  She always had boys after her.  I had issues for the longest time all through college because boys would always befriend me just to get to Bekah.  So even when we lived in different states if a boy started to like me I would secretly think that they probably saw a photo of Bekah and are just trying to get to her.  :)    I mean, I remember when we were in 6th and 7th grade, HIGH SCHOOL boys would be trying to holla at Bekah.  She had it goin ON!

Here is me, Bekah (far right) and sweet Courtney (front and center)

These were some of the bike riding days!

I was in 8th grade and Bek as in 7th.

We were sooooooo cool.......?????

 

    More people during bike riding days. 

     8th grade!!!!

So, we went from bikes to riding around in my Chevrolet Cavalier Z24!!!!!! 

Yeeeeeeeaaaaaahhhh!

That car was off the chain!  It actually wasn't, but I was the first one out of my friends to drive so the mere fact that it was a car made it the bomb!

Here is me and a bunch of my friends in high school.

DeWitt High School!!!!  What What!!!!!

Every last one of these girls rode in my Z24 at some time or another.. and they liked it.

It had muffler issues, so it sounded like it had pipes = cool

The over the head lining was falling on our heads = cool

My rear view mirror fell off = cool

The rims of the car looked like parabolas in math.. you know.. like a grid = coolest



You see, in small towns like ours you did a little something called "go riding".  You had no where to go, you just rode around.  Now, DeWitt did have 1 really awesome feature to it.  Our downtown square was the shiz!! 

We drove around and around the square (we drove in a circle) BUT the awesome part was (and still is) that there are no lanes!!!!   It was like driving Go-carts at the fair!  You just swerved around, drove slow or reeeeeally slow, drove next to people and talked to them out your window AS YOU DROVE!  And then when you saw friends you wanted to hang out with for a little bit, you just yelled at them or motioned for them to pull in.  Then you would park your car and just hang out.  We loitered to our hearts content!!!  It was like a big party on the square every Friday and Saturday night!  It was the time of my life.

When I go back home the kids don't ride around the square like we used to.  They don't EVEN know what they are missing!  I spend half my life in a car or truck just cruising the square!  I loved it!!!

1990's = Time of my life

(imagine a Bon Jovi song playing right about now)

perfection