The appeal of living in a small town like Perfection

I lived in a place like this growing up, (school was 27 miles away). Summer saw some highway traffic and maybe dozen people would summer over. Winter was usually just our family. There was a small community to the west 18 miles with about 50 people, but nothing for over 80 in any other direction. The Trailways bus would come through twice a day and drop off a newspaper, (really only once a day, second run was really late).

We had elk herds and bear that would wander right by the house. Our water came right out of a stream. The only time we saw police, other than for a wreck, was Tuesdays during the warm seasons, when a state cop would come up for lunch. I've been driving since I was 14, and if I wanted to go fishing or blow something up, I would just do it. It was never boring, living in town creates so many restrictions. One guy had his Pantera breakdown outside the house and I got to babysit the thing for a week, and drive it when he got it running. A motorcycle gang had their annual camp out a few miles away. There were about 300 that came from all over. I got hired to roll joints for them for a couple days - after a few hundred I could roll a perfect one in seconds.

We didn't have phone service that far out. The place had electrical with hydro and generator backup. No TV reception, but a few AM radio stations would come in at night. We had live music all the time. Everyone in the area had a CB radio, so we would relay down to someone with a phone if we needed to, the CB was on all the time and we might talk to our neighbors a couple times a day. I feel more isolated living in a city, and the bigger it is the worse it gets.

I lost track of the times we had people overnight. People from other places would be travelling and run out of gas or run in the ditch. We had the first house, so they would stop to use the phone, lol. They couldn't believe we didn't have one. We had a room set up for them if they showed up late.

I made money picking moss and peeling cascara bark. I could have picked fern, but that was kind of girly. In summer I would travel and work hauling hay for a little cash/room and board. In the winter my brother and I would install tire chains on peoples cars and when I got my license we would drive peoples cars for them. When they got stuck on the pass during a snowstorm my little brother would drive me up and I would drive their car down for $20. I always had money.