Americana and the simple life – somewhere in my psyche, I must want to be a small town girl.  Give me a piece of pie from the coffee shop, a single choice at the movie theater, everyone’s good friend Walter at the hardware store…and, that life sounds fantastic.

As long as I have the time during short road trips, I will take the back way through every “old-timey” looking Main Street over the hustle and bustle of a big city interstate any day.  Those charming main streets allow you to whisk yourself off to the past for just a moment in your mind.  There is something quite magical and romantic about life in a quaint town where you can dive into a sweet treat at the soda fountain while catching up on the town’s gossip.  A simpler town = a simpler life.  And, as technology takes away a lot of that simplicity, I don’t think it’s really that important that we find the right snapchat filter or tweet out our thoughts in 140 characters or less in order to have a rewarding life (and I get the irony of writing this on an internet blog).  Life in the idyllic small town of the past just seems…dreamy.  And, I’m in for that, every chance I get.

Tom’s Ice Cream Bowl in Zanesville, OH; Guntown Mountain outside of Cave City , KY; the Parkette Drive-In in Lexington, KY are all places that I have been fortunate enough to visit in the last couple of years with my cousin and Americana partner-in-crime, Betsy (and her kids).  We’ll travel out of the way just for a glimpse of some place kitschy; and, if you have a place with a fun attraction nearby (Dinosaur World, Colonial Williamsburg, Kentucky Down Under, etc.) even better!

Nostalgia at its best.  Amazing how those silly places left such an indelible picture in my childhood memory.  The Christmas (Tree) Inn, The World of Sid and Marty Krofft, Glenstone Lodge’s Waterfall Pool, The Pancake Man in Cape Cod, The Kapok Tree and, of course, the Sheraton French Lick – the pièce de résistance of a childhood road trip featuring an indoor pool, outdoor pool, horseback riding, arcade, bowling alley and the Pluto Club with activities, crafts and games – just for kids!  Whenever my brother and I heard a trip to French Lick was scheduled as one of the Barney Rapp Travel weekends, we knew we’d be in for an amazing time.

In fact, I got as close to living in a small town, as I will probably ever get, in French Lick, IN.  During a short weekend trip in the early 80s, my friend Stacy came along with us.  As the only teen girls in the group, the two of us were able to breakaway to the town’s one-screen cinema where they were playing, “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.”  Of course, I had already seen the film several times by this point (C. Thomas Howell’s first film – surely there will be more on that in a future post).

Somehow, and I can’t tell you how this even came about, Stacy and I convinced the lone cute boy running the ticket booth that our fathers were the men in charge of the new construction that was in town and we would all be moving to French Lick very soon. True, there was a new area of some kind being built near the resort, though I honestly have no idea what it was they were building.  We had an odd extended weekend off school (Columbus Day?), so in order to keep visiting with our new friend, we decided to check out the junior/senior high school first thing Monday morning.

Now, you can’t just walk into a school and start going to classes and expect no one to notice.  We had to extend our fictitious tale by going straight to the office to introduce ourselves as students that would be enrolling soon, and ask for permission to take a look at the school.  Our quick sneak peek entertainingly turned into a full school tour, two classes and lunch with our cute new friend.  Let’s be honest, the majority of kids, when given a day off of school, certainly wouldn’t deliberately choose to attend a different school that day, right?  Plus, it was the early 80s (a simpler time in itself), so I’m not surprised they believed us.  It was everything I dreamed a small town school would be like and I loved every minute of it.  There is a side lesson here though:  Teenage stories should only seen as credible until a cute boy or girl is added to the mix…once that happens, all bets are off!

And, that is the story of how I lived in a small town for a day (well ½ a day).  I can’t help but remember that trip fondly, even though I can’t remember the cute boy’s name to save my life.

Last month, I was lucky enough to go along with my cousin Lauren and her kids to visit French Lick again.  The theater is now a multi-plex and the resort has added a casino and spa.  The Pluto Club is now the Kids Club, with its own separate building for crafts, activities and nightly s’mores roast!  The kids and I even took a history tour of the resort which made the trip even more entertaining.  Even the history of a small town seems much more fascinating than that of a big city.  Maybe it’s that the people telling you stories have their own nostalgia for the town, so it seems overly exciting?  Or, maybe the tales they tell become filled with more intricate and interesting details throughout time, so the stories become legend?  Or, maybe they are just so much slower to catch up with the fast paced big city world that we appreciate the stories because they allow us the chance to step back in time, for just a minute?  Whatever the reason, it can’t stop me from trailing off in my mind and pushing aside the usual day to day to wonder which small town I’ll have the pleasure of visiting next.  It may not be one of my weekly challenges, but I must plan another Americana weekend trip in the next 49 weeks…anywhere you’ve been wanting to go?   #50Weeksto50

*Interesting fact:  if you wikipedia Americana, the site gives you five examples.  Coca-Cola is the third…coincidence?  I think not.