Ozarks
At times like these, I really love the place. I've seen so little of the world--mostly Missouri and bits of Trinidad, and Texas through an airplane window--so I can't really know how it beautiful it is on an overall scale, but I have the conceit to say it's pretty high up there, at least in the fall. Especially in the fall. When I was little, a neighbor knitted or crocheted me a short capelike thing out of some dark rainbow yarn, mostly consisting of dark greens and reds and yellows. That's how the hills look, now that the maples are turning. And it's very windy. It makes me want to sing--not that that's a good thing. I'd frighten the local wildlife.
That's the Ozarks without the people. Most of the time I hate their inhabitants unequivocally, and they hate me. It's a general sort of hatred, based on the behaviors of people as a whole instead of individuals. It would be more accurate to say we hate the idea of each other. Sometimes, though, they're just so amusing. For instance: Today in Deer (pop. 27), they're holding a funeral in the school gym. The town's not big enough for a funeral party, and they've got too much pride to come 12 miles to Jasper. The gym--which is itself a converted barn--is the biggest building in town, so they hold all the services there.
Tomorrow, my school will participate in an evolved form of highway robbery. Our town sits along a state highway, with only one way in and one way out unless you want to go miles out of your way. Every November, the Key Club from Jasper blockades the ways in and out of the town, stopping all the cars and asking for money. If you don't give them money, they throw peanuts at you.
And today, during AP English, we were discussing marriage between cousins. I told them that it used to be only aristocrats who were allowed to marry cousins, and that they had to get a special consent from the Pope. Then we all burst out laughing because. . . well, practically everyone who didn't move here is inbred. There are some towns consisting of only two major founding families, which were probably related in the first place. The idea that marrying your cousin used to be a privilege and not a way of life was just so. . . strange.
I'm not sure that these things would be funny to anyone who hasn't lived in a small town. I'm not even sure it would even be funny to anyone besides me. I just think it should be recorded. You can't bring the rest of the world to a small town--it's been tried. You have to impose the small town on the rest of the world.