Guy Boutin's Motorcycle Touring and Travel Pages

Adventures in Sport Touring with the Honda ST 1100, 1300 and the BMW 1200RT

Exploring North America...One Road at a Time

Travels in Small Town America
October 2003

I have a special love for small town America.  Over the past 2.5 years I have passed through thousands of them.  From the "grain elevator," towns of the Heartland, to the historical hamlets of New England, the ST and I have paid our respects.  The coastal villages of Florida and California and their panoramic views of the ocean, have touched my inner being.  I can't begin to remember each and everyone of these places, but all have contributed a joy to my travels.  

I've been through towns so small, that if a dog gets run over by a truck everyone goes out to look at it.  I've tossed my hand up at lonely shopkeepers in podunk towns across America, thinking years later he might still remember me, because so few rode by his store.  

Over the miles I've tried to get to the bottom of why I have such a fascination with such places.  I think one of the reasons is my baby boomer culture.  I grew up watching Andy Griffith walk the streets of Mayberry, and the Beaver dodging bullies on his way to school.  Every boomer recalls Ozzie and Harriet and the quiet suburbs they called home.  The places these people lived were nothing special, and that made it easy for me to identify with them.  

Small towns in America have a common theme in the way they are layed out.  Most have a water tower, which may or may not carry the town's name.  In the small business district you can be sure to find a drug store, hardware center, post office, feed supply, and a bank.  The police station is often a conglomerate of local government offices.  City Hall, court offices, and the fire department are often housed under one roof.  Next door will be the library, and all 500 of it's books.

You can tell a lot about a town, by how well kept the homes are near the business district.  If the houses are freshly painted, yards neatly trimmed, with new cars in the driveway, the municipality is probably in good shape.  The town might be small, but still vibrant.  A sure sign the opposite is true, is when the homes are run down, with broken down porches with trim work that needs painting so bad, wood is rotting by the minute.  I feel sorry for such places, and the people stuck there, not able to escape.

Every 4th or 5th town on the back roads of America will be a county seat.  Here, you will find a courthouse square with large shade trees bordering the highway.  Benches will dot the area, but I seldom see anyone sitting on them.  Across the street from the courthouse look for the luncheonette.  Inside, you will find old men sitting around drinking coffee, talking with other old men, about the days of not being old.

I recall a small town in the east Oregon hills brother Dennis Ryan and I visited in 2002.  We ran into a man who had left the Bay Area many years ago, to settle in the quiet surroundings he now calls home.  The highlight of his day? Going to the small coffee shop, with the checkerboard cloths, to chat the morning away.  How simple his life must be, but at the same time rewarding.  I think it could serve us well to sample such pleasures. 

When I pass through a small town I wonder where the "old money" is.  Old money being the folks whose roots go way back.  The descendants of those who started the town, or some important institution such as the bank.  I call these people the "socialites."  It is one of the few things I dislike about small towns.  Depending on the size of the town, the circle is small.  I picture them gathering at the small country club just outside the city limits, on Wednesday afternoons, to discuss town politics.  How do I know this?  Because it wasn't that long ago most businesses in such towns closed early on Wednesdays.  In many of the tiny hamlets I've passed through, that is still the case.  The mayor is in the back pocket of the social elite, they are ones that asked him to run, and promised their support if he did.  When the banker steps in the dinette, everyone freezes, because he holds the mortgage of half the people there.

I wouldn't care for that.  Those of us from the big city, can never fully understand such ideology.  But all in all, the positives out weigh such negatives.

When I am on a long trip on American backroads, I look for the perfect Norman Rockwell town, but so far I've not been able to find it.  I'm sure it is out there somewhere, I've just not been able to find the correct road to take me.  I long to meet the real "Floyd the Barber." Out on the open road a drugstore with an old fashioned malt bar waits. Serving  milkshakes there is a reincarnation of the soda jerk I knew from Norfolk 1963.  When I think I've located such a place, I stop and take a few pictures, but a few miles later, I prove myself wrong, when I take pictures of another.  I know that stuff is out there folks, I just have to keep riding till I find it.