Letter From Rural America

Letter From Rural America
by Diane Alden

Fly over country is dear to my heart. Mostly it is small town and rural America. Occasionally it even includes medium sized cities like Duluth, Nashville, Macon, Boise, Santa Fe, Omaha, Amarillo, San Bernadino or Helena.

But mostly its rural and the names would not make the front page of the New York Times or the Washington Post unless there was a school shooting or Al Gore was in town. Nope it's real places with names like Elko, Martinsdale, New Harbor, Centralia, Bemidji, Chisholm, Carrollton or Holly Springs. Big city America doesn't even make the cut, especially big coastal city America.

I have this thing about coastal dwellers. To me they are the scared, the unadventurous, the Americans who never sought out the far horizon. That is okay, they have their place and make contributions. Besides they have all the great museums and clubs. But, for the most part they are spoiled, self absorbed and catered to. The world they see revolves around their needs and ideas. It is on the coasts where government makes laws for those who live elsewhere. The mainstream media "deals" with fly over country when some event of national import is going on -- like the Columbine shooting or a flood or a drought. Mostly we are ignored though until it is time to inflict another one size fits all program on us, raise our taxes and fees or make rules about the land we live on.

I admit it I am a fly over country elitist snob. I think we are a better bunch out here. More in tune with nature and knowledgeable in the extreme how badly the one size fits all Washington policies fit us. Our crime rate is small and our social problems exist - but they aren't all that common. Mostly we can send our kids to the park and they will come home safe. We know Sadie's son is gay but we don't care. We know that Tim's kid did time for smoking pot - but that's okay too.

We don't abuse the environment because it is our livelihood. Besides we live here at great sacrifice because we love it. We love the blazing summer or the freezing winter. We are familiar with racoons in the backyard and the occasional bear wandering in to rummage through our garbage. We live with nature not as some National Geographic special or Sierra Club project but as everyday life.

Most of us don't shoot up the post office or heroin or our schools. We don't even trample the grass or throw garbage on the sidewalks. Many of us still go to church, attend PTO meetings and flag day celebrations, make jelly for the bazarre and bring food and clothing to the poor shelter. We are as enthusiastic about the girl's basketball team as we are about the boy's. We have learned to sing in the choirs of one another's churches because the membership has dwindled. We attend a few funerals every month as more of us die out.

We sit in rapt awe, tears in our eyes, ever so grateful when the symphony comes to town. We are glad for the young folks who move here and we welcome back the retirees. Even though we are philosophically miles apart we are thankful for the lady who edits the local newspaper and thinks enough of us to chronicle our important events.

We wave at the sheriff or cop who drives by the house or farm, and are happy he is there. He is our friend, we know his wife and kids.

We experience the changing seasons close at hand and harbor a secret happiness when the first snow falls and the ice houses go up on the lake. We are just as happy when the ice thaws and the fishermen appear in their boats and the snow birds come back from Florida. Life doesn't get any better than the first tomato plant we put in the ground, or the taste of it when its plucked fresh off the vine.

It is never an old story when the first calf is born or the mare drops a live foal. A wonderous thing when the boats go out hoping for a big catch. We are thankful when they return after an unexpected storm blows across the gulf.

We fill the bars and cafes with our voices as we talk about where America is going. We are the people of fly over country. The small town radio station owner, the lady who gives violin lessons to some of us who are late bloomers, the dentist who came back after college to serve the community, the kids who don't move to the big city because they like it better here.

But we are an endangered species. We are in the way of progress and saving whatever it is the folks on the coasts and cities are trying to save. They believe in ecosystems where we believe in woods, and pastures, lakes and fields and for generations have called them home.

Those of us who ranch and farm, log and mine, have chosen to live free and apart from the excitement and sophistication of the city. But we are in the way. We have become anachronisms standing in the way of whatever better future they have in mind. The folks who know so much want us to move away, go where they live, believe as they believe. We are confused and can't seem to unite to fight what is happening to us. We are too busy living and trying to survive and somehow the boom times always pass us by.

Those in power and the folks in the cities don't care though. But I know they will miss us when we are gone. The coastal dwellers, the city dwellers will be the poorer when we aren't here any more. Too bad city folks are the only ones important to the guys whose business is politics. If they only knew us our problems and stories might even interest the guys who run CNN, NBC and the rest.

All I know is that what is best about America still lives out here in the big wide somewhere called fly over country.

I will end this elegy with a letter from a dweller of that mystical and to some mythical place. He says it better than I do. Thanks to Bruce the Logger who lives in Duluth:

"A hundred years ago, in my senior year at SUNY College of Forestry at Syracuse, New York, one of my Forest Management profs spent much time expounding upon the implications of "one man/one vote" upon the management of our (rural) resources and the economic survival of the rural areas of America. I believe he was prescient in 1966 regarding the situation in which we are now suffering.

The cold, hard political truth is that this nation is now 1/3 rural, 2/3 urban. I've been trying to convince various folks and groups for several years that the rural way of life is endangered and that is where our REAL challenge exists. Until recently, however the NRA has looked at it as a Second Amendment/hunting problem, the off-roaders have looked upon it as an access problem, agriculture has looked at it as a farming problem and forest industry has looked at it as an industry "inconvenience."

I believe that the requisite public awareness (rural and informed urbanite) is developing; it is my hope that the literally thousands of fragmented interest groups will recognize the over-reaching problem which we all share and then see fit to develop some sort of organization. I see signs of common group communication taking root on the net, but direction and coordination are still lacking.

Did I send you copies of the interchange I had with an OHV (off-highway vehicle) guy a few weeks ago? In his letter to the feds or his representatives regarding road closures on federal land, he mentioned only the impact as he perceived it for off-roaders, and how off-roaders were really not the culprits. Not a word about those who depend upon resources and access for their livelihoods. I nailed him with a letter to the same mailing list he published on, and he was quite indignant. He wanted the list manager to "set me straight."

In regards to the urban-rural battle, it's damn hard to fight ignorance and propaganda, especially when the propaganda is being disseminated through our own tax Dollars and also foundation-funded groups. Ron Arnold is a major leader in publicizing this situation, as well as Henry Lamb of Eco-Logic fame. See: http://www.eco.freedom.org/el/ and http://www.eco.freedom.org/el/20000401/roundtable.shtml#al

The latter URL will show that this has been "coming on for a while" in this administration.

I believe the revolution will come. I also believe it will be propagandized like Waco and Ruby Ridge and will reside in the (urban) public mind squarely in its zone of indifference.

The only thing that might change that indifference is a severe reduction in the number of food-carrying tractor-trailers coming into New York City and other metropolitan areas. Corporate farms can't do it all, but then, concerted action is a scarce commodity among rural producers, no matter what their product. I got some e-mail today about present-day life on the family farm. if you're interested in reading it, let me know.

You take care now; voices in our "wilderness" are hard to come by! (And I'm not referring to the Wildlands Project!)

Bruce

www.american-partisan.com