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Having always been fascinated by the simpler, neighborly, mostly self sufficient lifestyles described in The Foxfire Journal or depicted in Shelby Adams photography, I can't help but wonder if there are any areas left in Appalachia where this can still be found. I'm not talking about homesteaders or back-to-the-land types, but the genuine article, where people don't feel they need (or don't have time for) modern technology and who live much as their grandparents did, not for religious reasons but because it's what they feel is right for them. I'm hoping there are still places like that where I could one day retire.
I dont believe you will find communities that live that way, but there are individuals that do in my area. We do have a Mennonite community but even they have cells and use computers now and of course their lifestyle is based on religion. Hard pressed to find anyone that dosent have a cell phone tho.
I know in the '80s my ex had reletives that lived in the hills in Georgia that still didn't have indoor plumbing. It is a romantic thought to go "back to the land" as it were but, it's not realistic. These people live like that for a reason and are very close knit and tight lipped with strangers. You prolly would not be readily accepted in their community. Did you ever watch the show Green Acres?? You would be that man.
You could find some remants, but things have changed alot. You would have been in luck before TV. And broadcast TV had not reached many areas well into the 70's and 80's. Things started changing when the huge TV dishes were introduced spreading mono culture.
Alot of the former hillbillies are now welfare and disability deadbeats .
There are remants of real America but not so easy to find. Also getting accepted often rather difficult. One rule of them is your not accepted by many people so long as there is anyone alive who can remember when your family first moved there.
I some really good times and still have some friends in rural Penna. But I also helped a long established family with and old time full range farm.
Helping feed critters to give them a break, repairing and building fences helping with the harvests.
We did have run ins with a few people there too. Code enforcement has also changed things alot. Having a pigsty or leaving some old equipment aound can now be a serious crime.
BUt if you seek normal people long enough and seriously enough you will likely find them.
Last edited by 1957TabbyCat; 11-16-2011 at 08:17 AM..
BUt if you seek normal people long enough and seriously enough you will likely find them.
That's it, exactly. Normal people, people who aren't pressured to 'keep up with the Jones's' I know there are bad as well as good points to such people, and that nowdays it might be harder to seperate the "rednecks" from mountaineers, but there is a distinct difference. Mountaineers are more pure, if you will. More responsible. What I'd love to find, even though I may never see such a place with my own eyes, would be a place where I could be accepted as myself. Just to know such a place exists would do my heart a lot of good. I don't want to have to worry if my hairstyle is outdated or if my clothes are in style. If I felt like going all day without putting my dentures in, I could. I was raised (in the 70's) thirty miles from the capital of my state, yet we didn't have indoor plumbing, and we felt we had to hide it. The authorities could have come in anytime, condemn the house, and place me in Foster Care. I don't want to feel I have to hide who I am.
Did you ever watch the show Green Acres?? You would be that man.
No, not really, because that was TV and it actually stereotyped rural people. I know I would be an outsider, but I don't think or act any differently than the locals would. Out here is where I don't fit in, and eventually the locals would realize that.
I dont believe you will find communities that live that way, but there are individuals that do in my area. We do have a Mennonite community but even they have cells and use computers now and of course their lifestyle is based on religion. Hard pressed to find anyone that dosent have a cell phone tho.
It's not the technology, such as cell phones or computers, that bother me. It's the attitude people have towards the technology, as though it's indispensible, that I object to. I would just be looking for 'genuine' people, and it's my belief that living in modern society makes it impossible to be genuine. Trusting. Honest. People in rural, isolated areas have a right to be stand-offish to outsiders because they know from bitter experience, outsiders aren't trustworthy or honest. I don't think, act, or believe the way society dictates that I should, so I don't believe I would be ostracized in those areas.
Had an old Russian uncle..well he was not really an uncle, because we did not have real relatives in Canada when we arrived - so any of my dads friends were all called uncle - and all the woman were called auntie..well ol Boris had a term for hicks..."Bill Hillies" - much like my dads term for a when you hit your thumb with a hammer "jesus Crysler"...now Boris was a hateful old guy..he did not like any of the unsophisticated folks in and around our tiny little town on the lake..cos' they were rural anglos that were the decendants of the soldiers who came back from over seas...and were not officers so they were forced to go settle in the north country and live in semi-winterized shacks...poor people - To this day if you go into northern Ontario you still find them....if they refere to a familar group they say " would useguys like a beer eh"?....To this day I still look at the hicks up north as my adopted tribe - they are a seperate culture. In Canada they have a term for immigrants groups...it's called mulit-culturalism...Yet they do not look at the hill billies up north as a culture - the city folks call them white trash..but they are a culture to be respected.
but I don't think not using technology and living like Grandparents applies to the hillbillies. sounds more like you are describing Amish, etc.
Most folks I know are glad to use technology and do things smarter faster better.
As I said, it isn't technology I object to. It's attitude.
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The mountains also go up into the NE also
