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How Does New Knoxville?


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Just wondering what the town of New Knoxville and other surrounding towns feel about having TWI hq in their backyard?

Just fine, I suppose...(It's a "free country")...just as long as they STAY OUTSIDE, and don't try to come into THE HOUSE!

:lol:

SPEC

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I can't say what it's like now, but when I lived in New Knoxville, the attitudes of the local people ranged from fear, to loathing, to respect, to affection.

Some people did nothing to hide their disdain for us and our children. There was one teacher at the school, in particular, who went out of his way to give our kids a hard time. Other teachers were great.

The people who owned the grocery store in town were very unfriendly toward twi people...very, even though we spent plenty of money in their store. The guy who owned the little party shop/pizza place/game room was friendly. Some members of the family who owned the gas station back then took PFAL, but they were always very sweet to us even before that time.

I liked living in NK. In fact, I regretted leaving that little town much more than I regretted leaving twi hq when I quit my job there. Aside from a few small-minded, stand-offish people, for the most part the people were the salt of the earth, in my experience.

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During my interim year in the Corps (1983-1984), I went into town with a 12th Corps friend to Adolph's, the restaurant that is no longer there. They refused to wait on her because she was black. No, I am not kidding. They would take my order, but not hers....and this is the heartland of America in the late 20th Century! I found it hard to believe.

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Wow, DogLover, I never heard about that. I was on staff during that time, and if I'd known, I never would have stepped foot in that place again.

I hardly ever went there anyway. There were much better places to eat in New Bremen and St. Marys, and certainly with friendlier staffs.

Of course you can't judge all the people of NK by that incident. I knew some wonderful, warm-hearted, generous people in that neck of the woods. In fact, someone I still consider one of my closest friends is a guy who was born and raised in NK, and lives there still when he's not traveling to other parts of the world for the military.

My landlord was another one. He and his girlfriend would come by and put home-grown veggies in my refrigerator whiile I was at work, and the one time in 4 years he raised my rent (I think by 5 whole dollars), he was extremely apologetic.

The local auto repair guy was cool, too. He had the dead-pan demeanor that a lot of men in that town had, but I think that was just a cultural thing, the way men there were expected to be. He went out of his way to be helpful, and he would extend credit for repairs, at no interest, as long as you'd never stiffed him in the past. Good guy.

For me it was like living in any small town. You had your local A-holes, your super-nice people, and the indifferent ones in between. :) Seldom did I discuss twi with any of them (the Bible, yes, twi, no), but my impression was that for the most part, they were used to twi being on the outskirts of town and didn't think a whole lot about it one way or the other. Of course I was an outsider, so I might have read it all wrong, but that was how it struck me.

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