O.k. - I could try and address this and it would take pages and pages.  Instead I will relate a story. 

I spent 3rd - 12th grade in Kentucky.  When I arrived at a well known prestigious private university my very own roomates asked me if “they wore shoes where I came from”. 

They were serious and weren’t trying to be funny.

Much of the world has perceptions regarding Kentucky and West Virginia and sometimes even Ohio.  Usually based on the way the people speak, the knowledge that there are people who live in the hills and the hollers without running water or indoor plumbing, etc.

The only reason that the children in my family didn’t adopt the cultural brainwashing is because my mother did her best to instill in us the knowledge that we were intelligent and should speak and act like it.

My last question was probably more rhetorical than literal. I’m aware of the attitudes toward Appalachians. Or any population living in a rural area. To many sophisticated, educated, urban dwellers, rural people are dumb. Otherwise they’d get out and ‘make something of themselves.’

I grew up in a rural area that was “discovered” by urbanites to the south of us just after Woodstock. They started coming up to buy property and live the romantic country life. But they also decided they were going to improve us and bring us some culture. To hell with the culture we already had.

It just surprised me (hugely) when this woman said it so matter-of-factly. Is it that she accepts and believes the stereotype or was she saying, “Look, I know this is how most of you think of us, but we are regular people who love our families, too.” The latter, maybe.

I don’t know why I was so surprised, except maybe for the stark pain in the statement.

’Eer jokes are precisely equivalent to Polish jokes, Aggie jokes, Newfie jokes ... pick your disfavored group, the jokes are the same.  I could “share” a few, but I’ll refrain.

Oh, in case the term is unfamiliar, that’s ‘Eer as in Mountaineer.

I was going to write about her after seeing that interview last night, but just couldn’t find the words.  As with you, that statement of hers came at me like a sledgehammer in the middle of the chest. It wasn’t just the word “dumb”, but the way it rolled off her tongue so matter of factly.  How sad is that? 

Err, it happens everywhere. It’s happing right were you are now. SIS you to get, oh, your a townie? With a certain look on the person’s face like they were below them lol. K says she gets some of it, too. Once they see her larger than life house and find out she is the head of PTA, then, then they are ok with it.
I have to admit I have fallen into it the stereo typing myself. Never in a million years did I think I would live in this city LOL! And the more I work at the High school, I think I might have been right....... LOL. (Just being funny) Oh what a day we had yesterday!
The whole story of the miners is truly sad. My heart goes out to all the families that are going through it.

Oh yes, that townie thing. The townies who were here first now have the outsiders moving in, letting it be known that the townies are a bunch of provincial hicks.

Well, okay. I’m an outsider who became a townie. Kind of, sort of. I’ve had outsiders look down their long aristocratic noses at me, too. When the lad was younger it used to bother me a lot. Now, not so much. Snobs.

Townie jokes, Vermont style (italics indicate strong Vermont accent):

“Lived here all your life?”
“Not yet, I ain’t.”

“Does this road go to St. Johnsbury?”
“Nope, stays right here”

Seriously, my friend Ted was born and raised in a very small town in central New Hampshire.  His parents bought a property on a dirt road a few miles outside the tiny village right after WWII and owned it for more than 40 years.  Yet Ted was never considered to be a “local” in that town, and the USGS topo maps still identify the property as “Shackford Corners”, after the family that owned the land before Ted’s parents bought it.

The farther north you go, the more pronounced it is. I think you’d have to be a third generation ‘local’ before you’d be considered a local. And maybe not even then if anyone was around who remembered when the grandparents arrived.

I grew up in a tiny (and it still is) town in the Berkshires (MA) where you had to be the daughter of and granddaughter of and great granddaughter of (and I was!!) to be considered local.  People about three houses down the street “summered” there for probably 40 years before I was born and they were nothing more than “summer folk!” It’s changed now, not too many of the oldsters left--mostly all wealthy, empowered, spoiled, arrogant, obnoxious city people from NYC who “summer” there or spend their weekends there getting away from the rat race.  Tiny town with a getting bigger every day police force - why?  Cause these would be city folk that are moving in and they want the same protection they have (or think they have) in NYC. Crazy!!  My mom is staying with us for a while and she got a call asking if she knew anything about someone who died there this past week.  I asked her afterwards if she was now the “matriarch” of the town!!  She may be one of the oldest living residents left! My kids were 4th generation there (I can claim that as my oldest was born there!!)!  I guess they are the same everywhere…

That woman’s wail got to me.  My heart aches for her.  I believe I know how she feels, and I was a member of Mensa, an organization for people with high eye-ques.

I hope you don’t consider my comment as an intrusion.  After perusing your blog, I reckon both you and your readers would appreciate some good news, regarding opposition to your “smirking chimp”, my “dum’ya botch”.

Just recently, I took out an ad in The SUSQUEHANNA TRANSCRIPT, with text like so:

“I would love to represent Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District.  The three planks I nailed together in my platform out to get me elected.  ‘impeach bush’ is the first plank.  The second is ‘impeach bush’ And the third is like the second, ‘impeach bush’.”

Here’s the rest of what I have to say:

President George W “dum’ya botch” Bush thinks he’s Jesus Christ ... there, I wrote it.

Likely enough, your curiosity was piqued enough for you to open this e.mail.  If so, for once, your curiosity has done you a good turn.  If I may, I should like to call upon your patience to peruse the text, immediately following. 

Maybe on one fine day, your instructor had you undertake a certain exercise to determine just how well you’re inclined to follow directions.  Anyway, as you read the text, you noticed that the directions requested performing certain actions, some of which would be rather, say, noticeable.  This e.mail is very much like that so-called test.  So, please click on the embedded hyperlinks, after reading this entire e.mail.

I’m doing so for two reasons.  First, I’d like to re-assure you that I came upon your blog as an individual, and not as a spammer in the pay of this or that company.  And second, I would like to give you some idea of how I traversed a rather unusual train of thought. Now let’s begin our journey.  Incidentally, I found the U.R.L for your blog under the Massachusetts heading.

Wood’ja (?) buh-leave!  I was so taken with my piece on eminent domain that I began a somewhat desultory campaign to call attention to it.  To find people, who might concern themselves with the effects of the Supreme Court’s decision, I went to this website, whose U.R.L is just underneath:

http://www.reachm.com/amstreet/states-writes.htm

Well, it was through that website that I discovered how to tell you about that piece ...  don’cha just feel ever so lucky?!

http://hewhoisknownassefton.blogspot.com/2005/12/supremes-godless-commies.html

That “supremes-godless-commies-” excerpt in the above can easily enough get you conjecturing that I richly deserve my reputation for being a wild-eyed iconoclast cum “this gun for hire” ...  aaaay, that’s my nature.  And you might also easily enough surmise that I’ve paid for it.

Anyway, here’s the U.R.L for the piece, about which I am now enthusiastic,

http://hewhoisknownassefton.blogspot.com/2005/12/protecting-germans.html

I believe it’s only fair to clue you in that the article in question was inspired by the recent scandal of domestic spying without search warrants.  I’m surmising you’ll get a chuckle out of it.

oh, alright (!) already, so, it’s easy to make fun of a president, who thinks he’s Jesus Christ.

oh, what the hey, here’s the U.R.L for where I really stick it it to your “smirking chimp”, my “dum’ya botch”:

http://hewhoisknownassefton.blogspot.com/2006/01/dispelling-stench-in-oval.html

toodles
......\
.he who is known as sefton

If you’ve gotten this far, without previously clicking on any of the preceding hyperlinks, congrats.  Otherwise, so (?) what!  Anyway, what follows is the new and improved footnote to the “german” piece.

enjoy, enjoy

according to rumor, which I’m starting, the previous title to this piece had “germans” preceded by stark Anglo-Saxon for “illicitly copulating”. Just to put the dear Reader’s mind at ease, that rumor is grossly exaggerated.

Although, however, I was thinking of inserting the participle of the “fire truck word” within a certain nom de gloire. However, even for a wild-eyed iconoclast cum “this laptop for hire”, there are constraints.

Nonetheless, within those constraints, I believe I’m entitled to stating this conjecture, which recent experience has impelled me to dope out. Here goes.

Whenever we hear a politician, of whatever orientation, claim to have “Jesus” in their heart. More than likely, that sapsucker has “cotton candy” for brains.

.... aaaay, you, whyz.ache.err, take my word for it. I’m having a hard time being diplomatic.