Growing Up in Small Town Nebraska...

I saw a post on Facebook recently about what it means to grow up in the "Midwest." I hate the term Midwest because it seems that everyone thinks they are part of it and it includes too many people to have a distinctive culture. While the article talked about saying "ope" and making casseroles, that is not the "Midwest" I grew up in. There were, however, many distinctive things about how I grew up that did relate to the article and I have made up some of my own.

Growing up in small town Nebraska....

-I spent Saturday afternoons singing along to the "Save Big Money at Menards" jingle while trying our every chair or swing in the patio furniture section while my parents collected their latest home improvement supplies.

-I would pull out a pound of beef from the deep freeze when I came home from school to thaw it out because 9/10 of our "suppers" required hamburger.

-I was more likely to see a deer (or three) than another car on the way home from a friend's house in the evening.

-Driving over two hours to Lincoln or Omaha felt like a "vacation" even though we just ate at someplace like Olive Garden and shopped at a bigger mall.

-I gave all directions in terms of time or landmarks instead of miles or street names: "It's the second turn after the red barn" or "I'd say it's about an hour away".

-I knew what every school gym looked like within a 100 radius because I'd seen at least two basketball games in any given one. I'd even critique them. "Let's bring our own food because their concession stand sucks." or "I like the purple bleachers at that school" or even better, "I hope they have walking tacos like last time!"

-When my grandma called to get a "treat", I knew we were going to the one ice cream place in town, "visiting" with everyone that happened to be there for an hour,  and then delivering chocolate malts to the guys at the farm.

-I participated in some epic block-wide hide-and-seek or sardines games, in which we traipsed through every yard. We knew everyone on the block anyway (and I was related to quite a few of them!)

-I went trick-or-treating most years wearing layers or clothes under my costume.

-I still can't go through more than 2 days without having a conversation about the weather...and after it rains, I definitely want to go out and look at my rain gauge to see "what we got."

-I had to drive to a different town to do my driver's education test because we don't have stoplights or four lane roads.