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The Isolation of Rural Life
A peopled wilderness along Appalachian backroads
I had a strange feeling yesterday as we were driving through a rural area on our way home. I was thinking about the drug epidemic that was raging through such areas. It all looks so sleepy from the outside.
There were a few scattered houses, sheds, and barns, some abandoned but others clearly inhabited. All of it looks so unplanned and weathered. Piles of junk, firewood and lumber, old vehicles, vines growing all over everything, dogs laying out watching. Combined with that were satellite dishes attached to every corner, corn and soybean crops labeled with agribusiness seed brands, our GPS announcing an upcoming turn.
We passed a sagging old house that looked like it was built in the Depression era. It had junk piled on the porch. Several bikes were thrown down in the yard, as if children had hastily abandoned them when they were called inside for supper. It made me think of my parents, who made sure we always had our little bikes and big wheels.
The grass was mowed up in a big perimeter, and on three sides were corn rows. People work very hard to carve out such a life. I remember my mom speculating once that the American obsession with yards arose from the pioneer days, when clearing the wilderness away from your dwelling was necessary to…
