The latest election and the resulting unsettling actions seem to me more about the direction in which the country as a whole is heading. The cities in our country, with their large populations dominate election results. This is disconcerting for those who live in rural areas. Cultures vary widely from urban to suburban to rural. If urban cultures dominate every aspect of life and law, how do rural individuals make their needs known and their voice heard?
Take gun control for instance - where we live (in Clarendon New York) police are 10 to 15 minutes away. What if there is a rabid animal? This has happened to me in the past. If we are live with urban culture in the rural areas, and urban predominance in the laws, how do these people protect themselves, their homes, their properties, their livestock? Do they resort to picks and shovels, bows and arrows, spears? With a rabid animal, a safe distance is the best distance.
My family lived in a very rural area when I was a young boy. My wife and I still do. The farmer next to us was exposed to rabies through milking his cows, and needed an extensive series of injections to prevent the disease. These shots were painful. One day my sister Carol and I were playing outside. I was about 12, and she was 8. She told me there was a dog coming down the road. (At that time Glidden Road was still a dirt road.) My dad was working in the back yard and I yelled for him. He came running and immediately told me to go get the shotgun while he scooped my sister out of the way. I ran inside and brought out the shotgun, which I had loaded on the way out to the side yard. He handed Carol to me, and then shot the fox which was about 60 feet away. It was dead. He handed me the shotgun and told me to go get a shovel while he stood watch. I set the shotgun by the house (bolt open and safety on - yes, my father did show me how to safely handle a firearm), and then brought him a shovel. We buried the fox in a field by the side of the road. The authorities at that time had no interest in testing rabid animals - much different attitude than now. If my sister and I had been bitten by that fox, we would have needed very painful and very expensive injections. There is no cure for rabies once infected with the disease.
This is only one issue which conflicts the discussion of the differences in urban, suburban, and rural culture. The survival basics, food, shelter, clothing, companionship, all remain the same; how these are obtained is often the difference, and peoples’ attitudes on how to obtain these vary greatly. For example, rural individuals and families more often than not will look to themselves for food, growing gardens, raising chickens or geese, hunting, and fishing. Families usually teach their children about pickling, fermenting, canning, or freezing all types of food. There are stores in the country, of course. In years past, we have survived blizzards with preserved food and kerosene heaters as the roads were often impassable for days on end. We could not walk down the street through the snow to the corner grocery.
Country folks interaction with the police are usually much different as well. All too often the police in the urban areas become hardened and jaded through their daily interactions with all too often hardened criminals. Most of us who live in the country have interactions where the officers ask for drivers license and registration - after all country roads are pretty wide open, and some of us have lead feet! People calling for the defunding of the police in urban areas could be doing themselves a disservice. There may be a better way of helping the police to overcome their exposure to these hardened criminal elements with regular counseling, shifting assignments and roles, community outreach with schools, parks, and recreation centers. This would help them, as well as the community, to see the bigger picture of community policing. The old saying of ‘stay away from trouble and it won’t follow you’ applies as well to the community at large.
