Small Town Spotlight 5: Shiffon

OK, we’re getting into the towns a little closer in location to Mayberry now, and the next four towns featured here are the ones that were officially a part of the high school Bev attended. Shiffon is the biggest of those four towns, and the town where Bev’s high school was located.

Small Town Stats
Public Pools: 1
Private Pools: 3
Pop Machines: unknown

One of the most notable things about Shiffon is the railroad tracks. They lie on the west edge of town, which is where all of the kids from Mayberry and Thornville (and some rural Shiffon and Chaper kids) drive into town. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, except for the fact that I’m pretty sure these railroad tracks are part of the most heavily-trafficked route in the United States, and the cross-bars are down more than they are up. This especially tends to happen around 7:45 am, hampering lots of students (in both cars and school buses) from getting to school on time. It also makes a pretty convenient excuse for those of us who are running late and looking for an excused tardy pass. “There was a train,” works every time. I mean… at least I’ve heard.

There couldn’t have been anything more fitting than the Cheese Ball Crawl crew getting caught at the railroad tracks as we left Shiffon to wrap up the Crawl and get home to Mayberry.

It also couldn’t have been more fitting that it was a false alarm and the cross-bars were down for a good five minutes before drivers started going rogue and driving in between them.

And the most fitting? The first of those drivers to risk it all and cross the tracks? One of my best friend’s cousins. Small town life, man.

Here he is, making his move:

He’s probably wondering why the ladies with the out-of-state plate are taking pictures of him…

Then others followed suit…

Including Yours Truly (the start of making my move…)

Mid-move:

And, home-free!

OK, so that happened on our way out of town, and after we took all these riveting photos.

Of Bev’s high school…

More tractors in yards…

And some funny (?) wooden figures peeing and bending over in yards…

And of Main Street, where Bev and her high school posse used to spend a lot of time. There was a place called Marty’s that had great food (chicken strips and cheese balls- the standard Midwesterner’s order) and a pool table. It was a great spot back in the day, but now? Well…

Next door to Marty’s was “the bowling alley” which I think has an actual name… it’s still there, and I think might even still be open though it’s a bit hard to tell from the photo. And also hard to tell from standing outside the damn place. It has one door, no windows, and not exactly a line of people waiting to get in, so I’m just not sure about whether or not it’s functional. But I am sure about whether or not I want to enter.

Shiffon definitely has a few things downtown that are still open- at least one restaurant and a pharmacy.

Sundries. I had to Google it.

And a thrift store called The Sharing Shoppe that has been there since I was in high school. I just adore the fact that they chose Shoppe over Shop.

This place used to be called the Shiffon Inn. Henrietta worked there in high school and they had pretty good food. An early morning “coffee” joint (remember the meaning of “coffee” in the Midwest?) with diner-style breakfast and lunch. Now, it looks like it has antiques and treasure? Maybe it’s called Timeless Treasure? Not sure and not going in to check it out.

And, don’t worry- we didn’t miss the opportunity to drive by Bev’s favorite Shiffonite’s house. We’ll refer to him here as Blanch, and whether or not we actually do a Small Town Citizen Spotlight, we’ll do another post about him one of these days… Let’s just say Blanch told tall tales. Like how he had a Lamborghini in his basement.

And we happened to roll by the house (apartment) of one of Bev’s least favorite Shiffonites as well. Mr. Shitter, the high school Spanish teacher who:
a) was suspected of having a fake girlfriend. Her name was Julie and Shitter would speak of her often, but no one has ever met or seen Julie. You do the math.
b) let us form a “Spanish club” my senior year of high school solely for the purpose of adding it to our college applications. (In our defense, we didn’t have a lot of opportunities for clubs and all in our small school and, in some ways, that put us at a disadvantage). We literally talked him into letting us go to a Mexican restaurant during school hours for a field trip once. We ate chips and salsa and talked shit. Shitter had a margarita. Kidding! But, man, I wish that was true.
c) caught Bev (and literally everyone) cheating on Spanish tests pretty much daily and never did anything about it. The one time I got caught, I had the textbook open on the floor beneath my desk. He walked by me, turned his head to the side, looked at me out of the corner of his eyes, and said, “Beeeeeev…”, so I ~~rolled my eyes hard and~~ closed the book. Then he walked away. And I just re-opened the book and kept cheating. (and can’t speak a lick of Spanish today)
d) sometimes tried to talk Bevvy here into joining the drama club. Or taking drama classes or whatever it was. His biggest selling point was once telling me that if they ever put on The Taming of the Shrew, I would make an excellent shrew. I don’t know much about Shakespeare, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t a compliment.

We rolled out to the softball fields where Bev used to play. And where Blanch told everyone he did a triple gainer into the pits in the outfield. I also don’t know much about triple gainers, so I looked it up for you guys. Here’s some info according to Google:

The standing triple gainer consists of a gainer performed with three full rotations, or a triple backflip whilst traveling forwards. No one has yet come close to landing it.

I told you Blanch told tall tales, guys.