We're Out. Well, Almost.

It’s official: We no longer reside in Sugar City. Though some of our stuff still does. Temporarily.

Frankly, with the amount of stuff we hauled out of our house, I’m surprised it just didn’t blow up with all of that crammed in there. We have successfully diminished a six-car shop until there’s barely enough room to park two cars in it, and we still had to leave some stuff in Sugar City with friends because we just didn’t have enough room in our two vehicles last night to haul it home. Lexie had to sit in the truck cradling a radio and with a plant dangling in her face. Liam rode with Isaac sitting on his lap. And Michelle had to unbuckle her seatbelt and lean waaaaay forward every time she wanted to check traffic at a stop sign to see if it was clear enough to pass.

Yet we all made it to Iona, our temporary abode for the next few days, unscathed, losing only the top of a shoebox in the voyage.

Today, Michelle goes back to Sugar to pick up a few things we couldn’t cram in the car: A mirror, vacuum cleaner, a garbage can, some stuff to give away and a few random empty boxes. Friday, I go up with her with the trailer to retrieve the swing set and one big garbage can. Then we’re done. And by Friday afternoon, we’ll be moving in to our new home in Ammon. Hopefully.

So what did we do last night? Clean and pack. I scrubbed toilet and cleaned out the fireplace and then spent a long time stuffing things into the truck and car while Michelle cleaned out the refrigerator which, I’m glad to say, stayed there.

Looking forward to a more relaxed few days between now and Friday, however. Riding the bus out to work after sleeping in an extra half hour was nice, and to add to the pleasure I’m able to get on a bus that takes me to RWMC without having to make a change at Central, and that’s nice. Though the seats are cramped. I may have to experiment, see if I can find some seats on the bus that are more suited to the fully-seated gentleman that I am.

Building a Garage

In the fourteen years we’ve been married, we’ve owned two houses. The first was a little crackerbox on a tiny lot in Rexburg, a block north of the Ricks College stadium, so we got lots of cannon noise when they played football and lots of people parking in front of our driveway as they went to games. The second is the one we have now, in much quieter Sugar City.

Neither one has had a garage.

That is a problem, given we live in an area where it snows five months out of the year. We’d like a garage where we could park the cars, maybe a bicycle or two.

So without moving to a new home that already has a garage, that leaves us building one where we currently are.

That’s another problem.

Sugar City, of course, flooded in 1976. A lot of people, when they rebuilt, bought additional lots next to theirs. Not the intrepid owners of our current home. Instead, they built on a rather narrow lot, not leaving future owners a lot of options, garage-wise. We have two, as I see it, and that means only two options for the driveway, not the garage. The garage itself would have to be in the back yard somewhere, preferably to the south, since the only exit to the front yard is on the north. Our other option is an exit to the alley, but since it’s not plowed during the winter, we’d have to plow it ourselves. Not a fun option.

Then there are the setbacks and the size limitations and the fact that if we build, we’d kinda like a bonus room atop the garage – which presents another difficulty. So I’m doing the homework on sizes and setbacks now, and, this weekend while Michelle is away at Scout training, I’ll go out into the back yard and stake out a few likely options. I have to see how things’ll fit visually – as does Michelle – before I can really envision things. I’m plenty worried we’ll end up with nothing but garage and driveway in the back yard, which is something we’d like to avoid. That is, unless we take the alley exit option. That’s what I’m leaning towards, but Michelle isn’t sold on the concept. So we’ll have to see what I can figure out this weekend.

Our Odd Neighborhood

A few weeks ago (I know, I'm slow -- it took a while for me to remember to get the photos out of our camera) this sign appeared on a rather large tree stump in our neighbors' yard. If you can't read it, the sign says:

For the uninitiated, this is what the Rameumptom is.

We were accused of putting the sign up, which I can understand. We're nearby. We're kind of sneaky. But 'tweren't us. I like the concept, though.

Grocery Store Mythology, Part II

 NOT our grocery store. Yet.

Earlier this month, I penned a screed against mythologizing the local grocery store, little knowing that our local grocery store would announce that they're likely to close within the next six weeks due to a general lack of customers.

There may be many reasons they're not getting the customer base they need to stay open. One of them may be the 91-cent onion we purchased there earlier today. As much as I'd like to support our local businesses -- and we've got a few of them, even a dentist, a rarity these days in towns of 1,200 -- part of me also wishes they'd do a little more to support us. The 91-cent onion is, of course, indicative of the prices there -- when we can drive a bit further to find an onion that's only 33 cents, and a lot of other things that are also significantly less expensive, shopping locally makes less sense, even if we have to spend more on gasoline to shop further abroad.

So I guess what we'd miss if the local store closes is the convenience -- and maybe that's the kind of thing they need to focus on. One thing that might help is if they kept more than banker's hours -- if you need groceries after 6:30 pm, you have to drive further afield as the local store is closed. Maybe back when they set the hours people weren't shopping after 6:30. But maybe part of the reason is that the store is never open after 6:30, so the shoppers just assume they have to go elsewhere. I remember a few years ago when my wife suddenly got a migraine at about midnight and I had to drive fifteen minutes outside of town to even find a vending machine where I could get her a Diet Coke. Would have been nice to have the local store open as an option then. They could interact with the community more, find out what they want to shop for in a local store, and why they might shop elsewhere. Maybe they can't beat the bigger stores in price, so they've got to stress the convenience, and stock their shelves in a way that makes the place a convenience center, not a price-beater. Maybe I should get off my duff and offer my meager services to them.

Sugar City's pretty unique among small towns. We drove through many small towns from Wyoming to Illinois and back a few years ago, and never saw a town as small as Sugar with its own grocery store. Maybe for good reason -- there are bigger cities with bigger stores. But surely there's a niche Sugar's grocery store could fill that the big guys can't. My wife, for instance, grew up in a small town very similar in size to Sugar, which also had the advantage/disadvantage of close proximity to a larger community with more food shopping choices. All they had, however, was a gas store that tried to masquerade as a grocery store by stocking really old, brick-hard brown sugar and crackers that came with free ants. Our store in Sugar, even with its warts, is a lot better than that.

So, wonderful folk in Sugar City -- what would it take to get you to shop more at our local grocery store? Fill me in on the details.

My Wife Gets Things Done

So how's this for news: The Sugar-Salem School District will end the school year two days and a few hours early, calling May 29 the last day, rather than June 3. This just a few days after my wife talked with the district superintendent about closing early.

The in-district discussion I blogged about earlier came to a vote among classified employees, who voted -- this is unofficial, of course -- 77 to 7 to close school early. So there was that, too. My wife didn't do everything.

As I mentioned earlier, it's more of a symbolic money-saving gesture than a real money-saving gesture, but at least the symbolism is there. I don't believe the district will save tons of money, but at this point -- and especially as they ask patrons for a $450,000 levy -- making even token money-saving gestures might help. What also might help is that patrons in the neighboring Fremont School District approved a $1.8-million levy a few days ago.

I think Sugar's prospects of getting the levy passed are good. I know how I'll be voting, at least.

Sugar City Deserves Great Internet

On top of everything else I've got to do this weekend, I just may nominate Sugar City for Google's fiber optic Internet trial. And sicne I start with the pessimistic attitude that there's no way they'll ever select Sugar City, I've got nothing to lose. Except the time it takes to put the nomination together. Including the video I'm thinking about. But that's insanity. But it's also a justification for the video camera we bought at Christmas, and good practice at using the thing for more than recording when the Pink Bunny sings.



I've got to admit it would be pretty nice to have the fiber optic option in Sugar City. The school district has a fiber optic network that, if I remember correctly, links up to a fiber pipeline that leaves the state. Or something like that. Maybe not. But it sure would be nice. I have a fiber optic connection at work, and love it. The wireless connection I have at home is OK -- it's better than dial-up, comparable to DSL. But it's the pricing that stinks. No matter what service we go with (wireless, DSL, cable) it's the same price for the same service. That's not competition. It's an agreed-upon monopoly.

Finding Underwear

If you live in Sugar City, your life is in some ways influenced by the Teton Dam flood of 1976. Most notably, there's a dividing line (psychologically) between those who lived here during the flood, and those who move dhere after the flood. We fall into the second category. I was only four years old when the Teton Dam broke in June 1976, but I do have vivid memories of Dad taking us up to the Rexburg area to see the wreckage -- I remember seeing railroad tracks coiled up like slinkies, houses half on the road and bits of road washed out completely. That being said, it was interesting to find these pictures. The first shows the entire city under the flood waters. The second, below, is more interesting.

This photo shows the 100 block of North Fremont Avenue, where we live now. North is to the top of this photo, with Fremont Avenue running diagonally out of the right-hand side of the shot. Our house sits on the lot with the mobile home in the front yard, squashed up against the house. None of the houses you see in this picture are still there, with the possible exception of the 1 ½ story house in the upper center of the photo (with the mobile home squashed up against the side). As far as I can tell, only two structures in this photo still stand – the one-car garage (with the light-blue sedan poking out of it, just to the left of center) and the two-story pillbox-looking shed near the center right of the photo. By all evidence, Sugar City was a real shotgun shack town even before the flood occurred. Someone also had a pink house. A pink house. Yikes. What is interesting about this layout, however, is this: Ours is a very narrow lot compared to the others on the block. I’d always half suspected that there were fewer homes on the block before the flood, and that after, someone subdivided a lot. Not so. There were eight houses on the block then, and eight houses on the block now. Each home, however, has been replaced by a much larger home. Ours is likely the smallest on the block, and it’s still 1,800 square feet. I can see here that the house that was on the lot before ours was rather long and narrow, matching the size of the lot. Ours now practically straddles the lot. It’s only about four feet from the southern property line, perhaps ten or twelve from the northern. Not a very convenient layout, but then again, homes being built back then weren’t built to fit the lot, were they?

If I can remember, I'll dredge up a picture my wife took of our block from a small plane at a somewhat similar angle, so y'all can see what the town looks like now. Or at least how it looked when she took the picture.