SO U MOVING TO HSTNGS! PACK A AMPULE OF ANTIVENOM AND A FACK FULL OF EMINEM

hi arbys

This is AWESOME and PERFECT, lollll

Welcome to your new life, arbys. We'll see you through.

notable things about HSTNGS:

1) The high school looks like a rich community college; it's kind of insane.
2) Many of the people who live there are awesome, but many of the people who live there are terrifying townies. Tread carefully.
3) Avoid teenagers like the plague. They are all insane with boredom and are likely to do lethal things for no good fucking reason.
4) Invest in cable; after the first few times you walk through the parks, you will have exhausted much of what the town has to offer.
5) People will invariably mention the Le Duc Mansion as if it was a big deal. It isn't.
6) If Spiral Pizza still exists, order from them at least once and ponder on the fact that this local business put a Little Caesar's out of business.
7) Life revolves around the high school and the newspaper.
8) The easiest way to meet people is to become churchy. There are something like 20 churches in town.

wrt #8 The problem with that is that you might meet the craziest town people that way! You might be safe if you stick with the Episcopalians and Presbyterians. (I might be biased bc some of my oldest friends go to those churches)

to be honest, living in hstngs as an adult is prob not all that bad, its just a shit place to be when you cant drive

TRUTH NUKE

Any small town is a shit place to be when you can't drive.

This may well be true but a lot of really odd, disturbing shit has happened in HSTNGS, much of which you can find by digging through the archives of this board.

Now, I haven't lived there in 20 years so maybe it isn't still like Twin Peaks set in Stephen King's Maine, but seeing as recently as 6 years ago a kid talked his friends into helping him shoot his parents in the face so he could collect their life insurance...

I visit frequently bc my family is still there. It's still boring as hell, and I think that lulls you into not noticing the Twin Peaks set in Maine vibe. But then crazy nonsense like what you mentioned there happens and it's just like... okay, is it just me, or is there a theme here? And the answer I always come back to is yes.

In retrospect, I think I was super lucky in my choice of friends. And all of that hinged on the random decision one day to join Drama Club.

When weird stuff happens in Hastings, I never even feel surprised anymore.

BUT the key is to be aware of the possibility of CRAZY. If you're alert and avoid teenagers, you're probably good.

Also forgot to mention my brother's liquor store, H0us3 of W1n3s. (Dad now running the Red Wing stores.)

finally got someone to call back to set up a viewing! yeesh. seeing the place tmr after we're off work, some loft above a big masonic building downtown; hopefully i only need that sock full of quarters for laundry. we looked around for places in vermillion and such, too, and it looks pretty solid that we'll wind up in hstngs.

to be honest, living in hstngs as an adult is prob not all that bad, its just a shit place to be when you cant drive

this will actually be the first place i live in which i own a car.

I remember vividly how going to Burnsville seemed like a big deal when I was in high school. (This may be because my mother was terrified of driving anywhere other than Burnsville...)

Going to Burnsville was a big deal because they had a Shinders!

We never went there, though! It was strictly B. Dalton. (remember B. Dalton?)

B. Dalton vs Waldenbooks

Why hello 1988...

(I always preferred B. Dalton, btw)

I think everyone who made sense preferred B. Dalton

yeah i have no real reason to dislike waldenbooks but to this day i still do. i mean inactively i guess, but

i think there was still one of those left in the roseville mall last i checked actually. where time stops.

also going to burnsville was a big deal because NORTHERN LIGHTS man shit

weren't Northern Lights and Shinder's in the same strip mall?

that was the best strip mall in America IMO

yes they were, and yes it was

google is claiming that Shinder's still exists, is it lying?

sadly yes

according to some insidey info basically dude inherits business, loves whores and drugs, buries the whole empire in like less than a year

wtf

I guess it's a good thing I moved away, I wouldn't want revenue from my Doctor Who purchases paying for someone else's whores and drugs

I mean, if that was drugs and whores money, I would have spent it on drugs and whores

oh man I'm missing you guys right now... <3 <3 <3

And also that Northern Lights!

pff drove to hstngs just to go "oh the ad didn't say no pets". which is a bummer, i kinda liked the place. and if we wanted to roll with the twin peaks in derry, ME vibe all we really needed were some red drapes:
http://images.craigslist.org/3kc3oa3l35V55U45R2b5rb785d395dfbc12c3.jpg

picked up a local paper looks like they caught up with the garage door bandit over there in cottage grove. copper thieves hitting all the light poles tsk tsk tsk

growing up in w1nd0m it was all about driving to the river hills mall in 'kato cuz there was an arcade, or you'd drive to w0rthington cuz they had a movie theater with more than one screen and they showed their movies when they actually were released rather than only getting kids movies or the biggest possible blockbusters 6 months after the fact. i think hstngs was just big enough that weird stuff happened whereas w1nd0m i think there was one incident where some kids on the football team chased some cheerleaders or something with hockey sticks and that was some sorta big deal. beyond that it was like who got who pregnant and just...so sleepy.

omg how did i miss the inception of this thread

i think the last time i actually "set foot" (like literally, vs driving through) in HSTNGS was last autumn, when some buds of mine and i went for a ride down to red wing and back. i kept pointing out boring stuff like denny's and emily's bakery and being half-misty half-scornful and they were just like "sure man whatever" and then i was like "right why on earth would you give a shit"

we went to the dairy store and got milkshakes. they were like $1.25 and i was ~incensed~

wait so you have hstngs connections too? i think i've missed this.

btw there is something very satisfying/weird about how ilx is crawling w/HSTNGS ppl to an extent that involves someone actually moving there. that is some circle of life shit, right there

xp yeah!

4-12th grade

hstngs was just big enough that weird stuff happened

i want this to be true, but i've met loads of ppl from other equally-sized towns in the midwest and i still sorta think that hstngs occupies some liminal borderland of boring weirdness

xposts yeah it's weird to me too. when kg and i were looking for places to live for back-2-school time and she was like "i think hstngs looks like our best option" well i don't need to tell you what went through my mind

more xposts wow i had you pegged as from duluth or something idk how that lodged itself in my brain.

not doing a great job of selling you on it, sorry

anyway, i blame the bridge. http://teslastaging.com/forums/images/smilies/Gestures/userArmsCrossed.gif otherwise we'd be stillwater. beautiful, sane, touristed stillwater. fuck you stillwater why won't you return my phone calls!!!!!!! you're worse than that stuck-up red wing!!!!!!

i've probably been to duluth maybe three times. but i guess i talk a lot of trash about outdoorsy stuff that it makes sense

tbf, i think that when i and the rest of the ilx hstngs posse lived there (which was a...span) it was more of a "small-town" whereas now i think it's graduated to "exurb" status? i went to the new high school when i was in college and was like 'holy shit.' they learn in pods and there's bridges over the cafeteria/"social area" and the auditorium is amazing and i got spurned at lockers in tilefaced hallways (is this true? about the tile, i mean? i remember tile being everywhere) and farm boys fighting all the time

i also remember chris h3rman (of the clan h3rman) saying no, thanks, to the police officer that offered him a sledgehammer when it came time to bust the window of a car at a cop fundraiser in the parking lot and just punching it out with his fist. i remember thinking "i'm glad he's ok with me," because i was a nerd that had an hour and a half bus ride with bunch of fucking nutcases and he was my neighbor

i rep bus 57

this thread is making me laugh and cry at the same time already. So TOTALLY HSTNGS!!!

actually wait was it 57 or 16

I think jjj and I were on bus 1

also this:

i also remember chris h3rman (of the clan h3rman) saying no, thanks, to the police officer that offered him a sledgehammer when it came time to bust the window of a car at a cop fundraiser in the parking lot and just punching it out with his fist. i remember thinking "i'm glad he's ok with me," because i was a nerd that had an hour and a half bus ride with bunch of fucking nutcases and he was my neighbor

platonic ideal of HSTNGS

oh man, lolol

UPDATES

have you been murdered yet etc

Oh look, more good Hstngs in the news - guess who one of the 8 MN companies involved in the hobby lobby case was:

"Plaintiffs: Hastings Automotive, Inc., Hastings Chrysler Center, Inc., and Douglas W. Erickson
Location: Hastings
Industry: Retail Auto Sales
Excerpt from the complaint: As part of their Christian faith, Plaintiffs believe that life begins at conception, and it is therefore a grave moral wrong to destroy a human embryo. Consequently, Plaintiffs believe that the use of what are labeled contraceptive, but have an abortifacient effect, is immoral and sinful because they destroy a human life by chemically inducing an abortion."

yeah I was informed of that by J yesterday, who may or may not have been exuding gigantic waves of "my home town was so much better than yours and someone spraypainted 'nigger' on my parents' garage when I was a kid" while telling me

I am stabbing myself in my eyeballs over everything after reading those last two posts

(work tonight is going to be a challenge, I guess)

Oedipus R-C

haha...

It's still possible to laugh in these dire times, yay?!

I missed an opportunity to dance with Traci Bingham on Monday, BOOOOOOOOO

I'm sad bc I have no clue who that even is.

But I never get to dance with anyone, so

But hey, I had ice cream post-Joseph last night with Ms. 0, which was totally weird. But kind of fun...?

Also, is there some rule in Hastings that if you do a production of Joseph, Jacob must be played by the one black guy who lives in town? (deX - your singing voice is way better than this guy, although he was ok).

I gotta say, the new high school's auditorium is HUGE. I've seen several shows there and until there are ten trillion people on the stage you don't realize how HUGE it is. It's crazy.

hahaha we will see what's up if he ends up playing Action in West Side Story and Max in Sound of Music

HSTNGS-related, one of my pseudo-college* buddies is Director of Choral Activities at Macalester now and recently posted a status update about how he'd taken L1n W4rr3n out to dinner, which I found entirely awesome (jjj this is the dude we met up with at the Russian vodka place)

Traci Bingham dropped out of Harvard to pursue an acting and modeling career and ended up on Baywatch: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traci_Bingham

* "pseudo" because we never actually overlapped; he was class of 2001

I don't remember who was in their Sound of Music, but who knows, maybe they will do it again... Next summer is Guys and Dolls. So we're off the hook. For NOW

Ah, ok, Baywatch. I never managed to watch that. I'm blaming the kids. They are a great scapegoat... I missed xxxx because KIDS.

(But you guys might be able to recognize now that there is a lot of truth in it. They are adorable time sucks!)

its totally fine to miss baywatch because BAYWATCH tbf

I was feeding J last night and started watching Moral Orel, which had him completely enraptured, which led to my first ever "maybe my child shouldn't be watching this" moment

also John OTM re: Baywatch but OTOH it's kind of awesome seeing that one of the bigger patrons of young artists in town posed for Playboy back in the day

Still gunning for that number one spot

http://www.hastingsstargazette.com/content/skeletal-remains-found-site-new-cvs-pharmacy-hastings

Could it be... MURDER?!

My reaction to that whole thing was not even a flutter of surprise. I have no idea if that is extreme cynicism or what.

Had an exasperating shift at the hospital tonight... sigh.

My all time favorite John statement "stupid people shouldn't breathe" is getting me through the week you guys.

Vegas rules, you guys

Wait, are you gambling the babiez away???

testing username

I approve

I miss you guys. LOVED John's video online today on FB.

Hope you are well and enjoying those babies. :)

winona, mn c/d?

lol r u moving to winona

nope. but i have a friend . . . (srsly)

I like the Winona State nursing students who come to help us take care of patients when they do their clinicals... Otherwise I know next to nothing about Winona.

Probably safer than HSTNGS, though, and I believe it is also on the Mississippi...

is this the most recent HSTNGS thread? oh well, it's worthy of a revive anyway (via MS/subgenius):

http://thisiscriminal.com/episode-37-hastings-2-19-2016/

http://www.citypages.com/news/hastings-high-school-singing-the-heat-is-on-is-a-perfect-1980s-time-capsule-video-8096380

you guys

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/13501853_10154224045591768_161580284641422959_n.jpg?oh=318041cf9c5cdd68c42df83f1dabbb25&oe=57EB9D7E

posted by a high school acquaintance, not as a funny meme they found, but as a thing they actually did

Apparently having a wisdom tooth pulled after the age of 40 is the worst fucking idea in the world

http://bandwidth.wamu.org/thaylobleu-live-at-wamu/

check out my brother's band

I passed this along to my kids' former kung fu teacher, who is pretty active in the DC/Baltimore music world. It turns out that he knew your brother's singer through the kung fu scene out here! Sadly, he doesn't dig rock music much.

oh wow I just saw this, small world

https://twitter.com/MateoErickson/status/760950631842451456

y'all

http://erickson4us.com/about/

also this douche is from Cottage Grove, basically he can gtfo of the HSTNGS thread (unless he has weed)

i cannot get over his accent -- like it's obv very minnesotan but it's also so specifically reminiscent of the local accent

jergins and i had a layover in MSP on sunday and waved in the direction of hastings.

had i seen the above posts before now, i would have given the finger in the direction of cottage grove. what an a-hole.

i assumed he was a joke candidate at first

happy 950th anniversary of the battle of u

I have no place else to put this but the Facebook group for the symphony chorus I used to sing with is currently having a tizzy over negative comments about them on an article announcing their new director; I went to it to see what was being said and, thanks to the time frame being complained about, it reads like "ever since DJP and his wife left, the chorus has gotten progressively worse"

I know that's not at all what was being said but still: lol

a couple years ago i met a woman who was from wisconsin but went to school and lived in mpls for a while. she claimed that minnesota (or maybe just the cities? not sure) receives a special version of heinz ketchup that is sweeter than the kind sold elsewhere

i found this extremely difficult to believe. please reassure me

I'm gonna say she is correct just because

hmm

There’s a fire sale at the Trump shop in Hastings, Minnesota. pic.twitter.com/JxznIuOmY8

— bengarvin (@bengarvin) November 14, 2020

https://www.minnpost.com/mnopedia/2021/04/hastings-1907-the-burning-of-browns-chapel-ame/?fbclid=IwAR3fiKN4sk94274XL9MErbhG-cb1c-0QWq0VgBa19lzoyDssXP58HNWhHus