For Those Who Think They’re Smarter and Better Than Rural Folk…

A few thoughts from earlier this week:

I’m a city boy, but I married into a family filled with what I lovingly call “country folk.” They’re all from small towns, and are salt of the earth people who seem to be able to fix anything. Whenever I’d have something break in those early years, from plumbing to electrical or auto, I’d usually get a call from one with two comments: “I can fix it” and “I’ll be right over.”

They joked around about the label “hillbilly,” talking about the “cement pond” and the “fancy eating room,” and when someone would try to act more important than they were, it would be said “he thinks he’s a big shot” and soon humbled.

I’d later meet many more like that in the furniture business, as our plants were in small towns in North Carolina and Virginia. Many were craftsmen, always trying to find a way to make things better, and their ideas weren’t to see how cheap you could make something, but how you could make something good enough that their own families would be proud to own it.

Seeing some mock rural life on Twitter Friday as if they were somehow superior because they had an MBA or lived in a big city has made my blood boil (and I am a city boy with an MBA). Small town Southerners in my experience, take care of their own and would do anything to help a neighbor in need. You’re seeing that repeatedly now in videos from Western North Carolina.

So if you somehow think you’re smarter and better than those folk, well, you’re welcome to your opinion. All I know is every time I read such comments, I’m reminded of a bible verse in the book of Romans that says, “professing to be wise, they became fools.”

⭐  ⭐  ⭐  ⭐  ⭐  ⭐

Back in my early road warrior days, I had to go see a customer in Boston. The rep lived out near Plymouth Rock, so to make it easy on him, I stayed near his home. This allowed me one early morning to go see the smaller than expected rock, hear people say “that’s all there is?” and then walk down to the beach and stick my toe in the Atlantic Ocean.

Later that morning I flew from Logan Airport to LAX to see a customer in Los Angeles the next day, and stayed at the Manhattan Beach Marriott, where after dinner I went down to the beach and stepped into the Pacific Ocean. Made me wonder how many people got to wade into both oceans on the same day.

I don’t know about in the same day, but the Hokies have now gotten the chance to do that in the same week. At Miami last week, at Palo Alto today. The new ACC is offering certain opportunities – no matter how trivial – that teams of the past never encountered…

⭐  ⭐  ⭐  ⭐  ⭐  ⭐

One of the odd rules of being a Southerner is if someone makes eye contact with you, you say hello.

So in the last 5 years with my dog Maggie, my patio is up on a hill and down below is a bike path, and although the fence line is covered with trees, there are two patches of fence that are not. So when people walk by, I wave at them when they make eye contact with me and Maggie.

At first there was a hesitant wave back as if there was some crazy man up on his patio (which is a topic to debate some other day). But now it’s progressed to getting back not only a wave, but a “good morning” from most. Some even stop to talk.

Yeah, I know. I’ve become the Walmart greeter to the section of the bike path behind my house. But at my age, there are worse things to be 🙂