(03-26-2023, 07:31 PM)EndtheMadnessNow Wrote: I've been through a few towns in Oregon and Nevada that look very similar to sad McDowell County. Aside from inner Portland, much of southern Oregon along the I-5 corridor is meth towns & campgrounds. It's like a cancer eating away everything and spreading outward. Today it's probably a combination of meth/opiates & fentanyl.
I grow a small garden every spring/summer, but admittedly not for survival. I just like the fresh crisp taste & that little bit of satisfaction I didn't have to rely on a grocery store plus save a few bucks as I'm a big beef eater.
From your local territory description I got a sudden chill of 'Deliverance' up my spine. Ha. Probably more real than I would know.
Distance from Welch, West Virginia to the wealthiest county in America is 367 miles...Montgomery County, Maryland.
You ain't alone about the chill - when Grace and I were getting married, her daughter said to her "he's from WHERE? Haven't you ever seen the 'Wrong Turn' movies?" ROFLMFAO!
It's really not that bad around here. Hill folks are easy to get along with so long as one observes a few simple rules, the foremost of which is "don't be minding other folks' business". Live and let live. Mountaineers are the sort of people who will do anything in the world they can for you... until you piss them off. Then they'll do anything in the world they can TO you. So the easiest way to get along here is just not to piss folks off - pretty much like anywhere.
My son was raised in one of the wealthiest counties in America - Loudoun Co., VA. When he started raising his own kids, he decided that Loudoun County was no kinda place to raise children, and got the hell out of Dodge. He got out just in the nick of time - look what a mess that place is now, monied or not.
My "garden" is beyond "small" - it's positively TINY. I have another patch about 20 miles south of here that I can raise a garden on, but don't fancy the constant driving to tend to it.
There is also plenty of stuff to gather here. In a good mast year, I can gather literally tons of hickory nuts, black walnuts, acorns, and beech nuts. Matter of fact, it's about time for ramps (wild leeks, in case you've never heard of them) to start poking their leaves out of the ground in the woods, so it'll soon be time to go hunt some of them down.
Actually, the black walnuts pretty much gather themselves - they roll down hill and get back-stopped by the wall of my house. Year before last, they were piled almost as high as the windowsills all along the back of the house.
Really, there is so much stuff growing wild here, and free for the gathering, that if push came to shove I'd only have to use a store for a very few things, like coffee.
.