I was born 15 miles from electricity. Eventually my family moved to a dusty little town of 4,000. One paved road, and a rail road station. Left there to go to college in a city of 500,000. After college I moved in and out of a number of cities, including some of the largest in the country. In 1975, I was 28, married with two children, living with 500,000 people. My wife wanted to move closer to her family. I told her I’d move one time so, chose wisely. Truth be told I was fed up with big cities and regulations imposed to manage masses of humanity. Out of “more luck than good management” we ended up in a tiny town of 400. I threw out the anchor, and we’re still here, 46 years later. Two hours, in every direction from a town larger than 8,000 people.
While I constantly *****, complain, and worry about the direction the world and our country has been going since the end of the agrarian society and the introduction of the one world concept, that grew out of WWI and WWII and a desire to prevent another world war, it hasn’t effected me personally very much.
My personal experience, ( I recognize most folks don’t have the interest or the opportunity to live like I’ve been able to live), has by an large, been immune from much of the social induced crap that the people in our great cities are enduring.
In 46 years this tiny town has grown by less than 50 people. Still no stores, no sidewalks, no treated drinking water (spring water only), no fire department, no police department (great County Sheriffs though), a city council were people serve on out of duty as opposited to personal agendas, County picks up our trash once a week, kids of all ages play in the streets and in the fields from day light to dark, young mothers socialize on daily walks around our four block perimeter, old men and women shuffle down to the 100 year old. 8’ x 10” post office, mostly to visit and clear the City Bank VISA card application junk mail from their box, about the only strangers we see are distance relatives of long dead ancestors, looking for the Cemetery, two miles north of town. About two thirds of the town know each other well, the other third are mostly made up of folks who come for a few months/years and move on. Some of those we get to know and the rest prefer to be more private or are busy with family/friends or issues else where. It’s quiet, but for an occasional 10 year old racing around on a four wheel and that’s fairly rare. We have horse families, big garden families, hiker families, hunting families, fishing families, boating families, skiers, motorcyclists, team sport families, golfers, and a bunch that seem to do all of the above. Very, very very few that are ever unemployed for an extended period of time. We have 50 times more ambulance sirens than we do police sirens. Our greatest conflicts are over irrigation water limitations which are 99.9% of time short gatherings, where great friends raise there voices for an hour or so, then it’s back to congeniality, until the next time.
So what’s the point in all this unwanted nonsense?
Other than the long term concerns I have for our country and our civization, living in rural communities keeps you pretty much insolated from the racist, BLM, environmental, global warming, pandemic, murders, sh!t in the streets, dopers in the doorways, protests, road rage, etc. etc. etc. Over the years, it’s seems, at least, even those that leave those environment and move here don’t stay long. They haven’t lived this way and they don’t miss the urban problems but they do miss the good things the great cities offer and they quickly decide the serenity isn’t worth the sacrifice, as they interpret how we live here.
They say people are leaving New York, California, Washington, Oregon etc, and moving to rural areas. I think that’s true but...... most will end up in another city. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen violence in the streets in these places and seen people moving out. I’m not suggesting there isn’t a migration but much more of it is simple going into other cities, that will get ruined. It’s not going into the deep rural areas....... at least it’s not..... until the cities get so bad people will be fleeing all of them, just to stay alive. Like they did in WWII and other war torn places.
God help us when that happens.
So....... for those that want a different life style...... it’s still here but if you’re thinking you should change locations, moving to another city isn’t going to change much, accept your optimism........ for a short time.
Just saying.
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