[TheForge] YAK - Please talk Missouri UP or down

[Justin Fellenz]

You know, when I want to get a sense of a place I like to  go sit in a bar, up by the taps, and ask whoever is there what's cool about this town. If people know you're thinking of moving there, they'll either talk up their town or give you their bitterness. Up or down doesn't matter as much as the things they choose to highlight. I always learn a lot about the place (might take a couple bars to make sure you have a good sample--but remarkable commonalities emerge quickly) and it's fun.
   
  I used this approach when I was considering moving to St. Louis. After three days it didn't seem to be the town for me. I've since run my impressions past other people who have lived there and it seems I got a good picture--not that it's a bad town, just not where I wanted to live.
   
  As for the town you're considering...you'll have some culture shock, moving to a small town from the burbs and moving from nearly the coast to the heartland. Culture shock is a funny thing, in that it, too, has some surprising commonalities, and it can happen in your own country. Among other things it can be this long but decreasing wave that repeatedly passes through anticipation, disappointment at the sameness, disgust at the differences, idolization of where you left...if you move it might be worth doing some reading on the experience so you don't bolt back to where you came from at a low ebb.
   
  That said, as a friend reminded me when we were talking about our move to a farm in a small town in BC and I was expressing the same questions you are, nothing really needs to be forever. Try it for a few years and if it really sucks, it's a really, really big country.
   
  JRF