Hey Donna, I said granddad did it. That’s my “granddad” and I’m 56. The real economy of the place went down the tubes in the 1930′s and hasn’t come back since, so the social services always carry a load.
The succulence of the annually flooded bottomland produce is legend, and I think it’s the best in America. But weed truly has been the major cash crop down there since the 70′s, the County Sheriff who seizes some the week before the election is a true story, if a comical one. So is the chicken wire covered with rambling roses to foil air surveillance–rambling rose was introduced there in the 50′s, it is invasive, virulent, and almost impossible to totally pull up or kill out. It’s now so thick in some places that you can’t get through it.
All the brush is thick down there, and though there are Whitetails enough that it’s easy to put venison in your freezer to help you get by, it’s too dangerous, and against the law, to take them with high powered rifles–bowhunting and shotgun slugs allowed only.
Even then, unsafe shooting casualties are common every Fall, when some people come under the illusion that every rustle in the brush is a deer–even if it’s wearing blaze orange.
It’s also a nice quiet place to cook meth and there was a lot of it cooked before the ephedrines and pseudo-ephedrines were made into controlled substances you have to sign for.
The real folks I knew down there were far more likely to be found in the honky-tonks than the churches.
And my good friend, did, indeed, have her throat cut in a place where there was not much in the way of a Woman’s Shelter to be found.
Kate is lucky enough to live in a small town where the soil is rich and people are riding the ethanol boom. Under such conditions it’s pretty easy to believe in the virtues of hard work, and to have and live up to “family values”, as well as keep that nice white church spire in the picture well and regularly painted. It’s not so easy other places.
It’s not quite the same after 70 years of “getting by”. That’s three generations and more. Nor are small towns the same in other places as Kansas, whether its the River hugging counties in Ohio or the high desert of Espanola and Tierra Armilla, New Mexico. I’ve been in the vicinity of both places, and I know.
