Trying To Change A Town

I spent a couple of years at Arizona State then transferred to NAU in Flag. At the time, NAU had one of the highest quality Hotel / F&B management courses in the U.S. The course was strict and made for success to the degree that students wouldn't dream of going to class wearing anything less than what would be expected of a manager at a Hilton or Hyatt hotel. After I graduated I moved on but did go back about 20 years later for a visit.

When I stopped by to see a couple of my old professors I couldn't believe the massive change in the appearance and attitudes of the students. Tats and piercings coupled with what I would call unacceptable apparel and speech was the look that took the place of professionalism.
I do not think ANY of those students would come close to qualifying for any kind of professional management career.
In my minds eye all I could see was a manager in torn jeans and t-shirt, a bone going through his ear lobe, a metal rod in his tongue, a body covered with tats and a heavy usage of the words "like, yeah, uh, man, and a few F bombs" sprinkled throughout each spoken sentence trying to explain his P&L or the A&P accountability data to the board.

In short, people didn't allow the college to prepare and change them for success but rather the new era people going there changed the college into a place to hang out and display their new "free thinking".

 

Ok, Frank........I don't get this statement.

 

Small towns and cities don't want to be changed and people who have lived in them for years will resist change, as I think they should. Some folks like change, whereas others definitely don't.

If a person doesn't like the smell of dairy farming, don't move to an area where there are dairy farms. Don't try to shut-down the dairy farms! It just isn't that hard to understand.

 

True but sometimes small towns grow and change and not because they were forced to...it just happens over time.

Nothing stays the same forever.

 

When the moon in your eyes looks lika bigga pizza pie that's ..........uh...er........pneumonia.

 

Actually, there are many towns in Idaho, Montana, on the Colorado Plains, in North/South Dakota and some other states that have never and will never change.

I've been thru some of those towns and was pretty amazed at how "old fashioned" they looked. I loved it!!

 

Never say never! .

Even if no outsiders come in to change it. Not every generation may like the way things are now...it might not happen in your lifetime but it will happen...

 

There are areas in and around Bonners Ferry and up to western Montana that do not have running water and electricity. We had an employee who used the shower I built at the restaurant because the stream she normally bathed in was iced over and a couple who lived across the road from the restaurant had electricity but had to fill their water barrels at the fair grounds in Bonners.
In Moyie, just a few miles from the Montana border on the Idaho side, there is no cell reception because no one wants to see a cell tower built.

 

But that's probably the older generation that don't want cell phones, @Bobby Cole ...isn't it? I would think that most young people even ones with western lifestyles like modern devices.

I'm just thinking of the younger generation...we will die out soon enough and very few youngsters will like not having an iPhone etc.

Anyway, I'm done with this post. I see change as inevitable so there's no point me continuing.

Things have changed since I was a child...why would they stay the same now?

Adios for now. No need to upset myself...

 

I do go out but very early in the morning. Stay inside when it gets too hot, but even when I do go out..it's from an air conditioned house to and air conditioned car to a freezing store, where I have to take a sweater.

 

Guess you're just having a hard time understanding this Thread.

Ranch and farm kids don't spend hours upon hours on their cell phones, if they even have one, or playing computer games, like big city kids do. Those kids have livestock chores and field crop work to do.

Believe this or not, there are big differences between big city kids and ranch/farm kids. Most small town kids care less what big city kids do. They, like their parents, know of all the problems and crime that goes on in big cities and definitely don't want their town to become that way.

 

But, even then @Cody Fousnaugh, there is some validity in what @Chrissy Cross is saying. The rise in housing developments and investment properties have taken a toll on hundreds of thousands of acres of farmlands.
Even in the area where we presently live, what used to be vast corn, wheat, alfalfa and cotton fields have given way to big business and new housing.
It would seem that the newer generation has gained a higher interest in cash rather than the older values based on family tradition.

 

I could still take you to small towns in all of the Rocky Mountain, Black Hills and Plains states that remain totally unchanged. Even some small towns in Oklahoma like Weatherford and Rattan are the same. No heavy building, low population and very little-to-none modernization.

Just the way it is in these towns.