The Briefing Room
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Wingnut on July 04, 2022, 02:12:25 pm
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Nice story about Small town America
Mendon, Missouri. Population 171. There’s really nothing here. The tiny town is located off Route 11, just south of Yellow Creek. You’re three hours west of Saint Louis, two hours east of Kansas City.
It’s quiet. No attractions. No major landmarks. Nobody famous ever lived here unless you count Vern Kennedy, right-hander for the White Sox, circa 1934.
If you’re looking for entertainment in Mendon, your main option is Busch Light. But you’ll have to drive all the way to Brunswick to find a liquor store.
“We are just country folk,” said Mendon native Carol Ann Wamsley, “and that’s what makes us a special place.”
At its heart, Mendon is a railroad town. The first iron tracks were laid in 1887. Within a decade, a town sprang up. You had a few dozen storefronts, a school, a newspaper, and a couple churches with steeply conflicting views on eternal damnation. Most of that is gone now.
Today, the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad line still passes the northwest side of the community, only now it’s the Southern Transcon Railroad.
The Amtrak Southwest Chief runs through town regularly. On summer afternoons you can see the Amtrak locomotive in the distance, racing across the prairie like a polished chromium bullet. But the train never stops here. It just keeps moving.
Until last week.
It was a Monday that will live in infamy. The Southwest Chief made an unexpected stop near Mendon, of all places.
The Chief was traveling 87 mph, bound for Chicago. There were more people aboard than there are living within Mendon’s city limits.
Up ahead a dump truck was on the tracks. The truck was obstructing the crossing of County Road 113. This was not a small truck. This was a vehicle about the size of a Sonic Drive-In.
The train never slowed.
https://seandietrich.com/mendon-missouri/
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Great story. This is exactly the type of community I grew up in and returned to when we had children. Thanks for sharing.
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Great story. This is exactly the type of community I grew up in and returned to when we had children. Thanks for sharing.
It is where real Americans live. You know, Fly-Over country. Places Liberals turn their noses up at.
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Much like this: https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/2021/09/28/train-derailment-montana-communities-mobilize-help-amtrak-crash-victims/5904570001/ (https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/2021/09/28/train-derailment-montana-communities-mobilize-help-amtrak-crash-victims/5904570001/)
It's why I stay in flyover country. Not the scenery (although you can almost see it from here), not the weather (a mite more spring and fall would be nice), but the people. I fit best here.
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Much like this: https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/2021/09/28/train-derailment-montana-communities-mobilize-help-amtrak-crash-victims/5904570001/ (https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/2021/09/28/train-derailment-montana-communities-mobilize-help-amtrak-crash-victims/5904570001/)
It's why I stay in flyover country. Not the scenery (although you can almost see it from here), not the weather (a mite more spring and fall would be nice), but the people. I fit best here.
It's HOT here where I live at present but the inhabitants are great!
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It's HOT here where I live at present but the inhabitants are great!
:beer:
Yeah, it gets hot here, too. Every now and then it'll break 100...but winter keeps the riff raff out, and the main roads all went where there wasn't much scenery (easier to plow in the winter that way), so that leaves good folks relatively undiluted by totalitarian wannabes.
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Pretty typical for this part of the country.
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Places Liberals turn their noses up at.
For that, I am thankful. :yowsa:
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For that, I am thankful. :yowsa:
Both of us! :beer:
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And the most unusual thing about all this is: None of this is unusual. At least not within the national tapestry that is The Great American Small Town.
Although we rarely hear about such acts of compassion and lovingkindness within our society, believe me, they happen. Every day. Every hour. Ordinary Americans will astound you with their goodwill. Sadly, ordinary American journalists aren’t interested in being astounded by such things.
God bless Mayberry USA.
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Both of us! :beer:
Me Three. :beer:
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I can only imagine. We left a small city where we never locked our doors when we left the house and never gave it a second thought.
30 years later, the small city that we moved from has sprawled into a much larger city and the city we moved to with beautiful warm weather, sunshine most days and surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico has seen a tremendous population boom since the pandemic.
I still love the weather, but we've had two shootings near us that was unheard of in this area just a couple of years ago.
I still thank God for the beautiful climate that we live in, in modest comfort and that we have a roof over our heads and food in our bellies.
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For that, I am thankful. :yowsa:
:yowsa: Me, too!