New Member From Virginia

I haven't looked yet. Just been basking in the glow of current event free-willed dialogue.

 

There's a Food & Drinks forum.

 

At the risk of sitting in someone else's living room and talking about family, I agree.

I need to pop my head back in just to not lose track of those I've come to like.

 

Country folks. I'm a big city guy, myself. I came from a town of almost two hundred people. Well, actually I lived about a mile and a half out of town, and the town had a post office, a gas station, a grocery store, a bar, a Chevrolet dealership, and a lumberyard. Oh, and a school. That's gone now.

 

Ken, I drive through places like that and wonder how people survive.

I've been through the most southwest part of Virginia in small towns, and everything is an homage to the coals industry that used to be.

Even the county I'm in now has little other than retail. Old timers either worked the logging industry, or they made the 100 mile one-way-commute to a job up in the northern part of the state, and then back home again.

I talk about my "country place," but Walmart and Lowes and fast food are 8 miles up the road.

 

For the most part, they used to do things that are no longer viable, like farming, mining, or lumbering, depending on the location. My dad farmed several 40-acre sections but, by the time I came along, he also had to get a job in a shipbuilding company twenty-five miles away, and supplemented that by shoeing horses and logging some of his land. With the exception of those who own the few businesses that are in town, most people work in the nearest larger city, although high-speed Internet has allowed some people to be able to work from home. I'm glad I grew up where I did, though.

I now live in a town of a couple thousand, but I have to drive more than sixty miles, each way, for a Lowes or a Home Depot. There is a Walmart in another town about fifteen miles from here but it's a small one that seems never to have whatever I'm looking for. I hate Walmart, anyhow.

 

I brought my Northern Virginia job with me, but mostly worked out of a regional office about 35 miles from here because my internet stinks.

I hate seeing the blue collar stuff fade. I had a few in my life and enjoyed the satisfaction I got. Not everyone is geared towards the office work...and that speaks highly of them!!! I mostly made the transition for money (not that I didn't like most of the things I did.) I still think that once people realize they are merely recycling each other's BS, the whole thing is gonna fall apart.

There are still trades that will be in high demand: plumbers, electricians, mechanics, etc. But that's servicing the coat & tie types, requiring you to live near them. The rest of us do a lot of that stuff on our own.

I commented in another forum that up north, you are what you do. I've know folks here for months (or longer) without ever having aqny idea how they turn a buck. It just never came up. It's refreshing. It's who they are, not what they are.

 

Thank you, Von!

 

Thank you, Patsy!

 

Thanks, Al.

That's too bad about your deer, although their presence here prevents me from using the garden I plowed.