Spent a summer in Idaho Falls, moving from Indiana. It reminded me of Northern Ireland. 1/3 Mormon, 1/3 evangelical Christian, 1/3 everything else. The Christians and Mormons did not get along, so most of the time when I met someone the first thing they did was try to figure out what side I was on. It didn’t hurt that I had a 0,2, and 5 year old at the time, so I looked the type.
One of the moms I hung out with told me that she checks the publisher when her kids are given music books by their piano teacher. If it was published in Salt Lake CIty she wouldn’t buy it because that was supporitng Mormons. I also met several families that home schooled their kids because the public schools were (in their eyes) Mormon parochial schools and non-LDS kids were passed over for everything.
Indiana is conservative, but I never witnessed the emphasis on religion that I experienced in Idaho.
A little over 40 years ago we traveled extensively in the South (U.S.) and lived in Houston for a couple months. One of our first experiences – I’m guessing somewhere around Alabama – was stopping in a tiny restaurant for lunch. Our server noticed our NY tags and volunteered “We take care of our colored just fine. We don’t need no New Yorkers coming down telling us how to do it.”
I still have snapshots from that trip of a “COLORED SERVICE” sign over a business entrance, and of a vending machine with “QUATER’S ONLY” written in big Magic Marker letters near the coin slot.
A Bowling alley in Lafayette had “Bowdling” written on their big announcement sign. Well, English was not their first language, after all.
We stopped in a lunch counter one July with a coupon that said it was valid in July. The kid running it refused to take it clearing think valid meant void.
Probably a Covid denier today.
Yes, although it wasn’t quite in the way you might think.
Here in Texas, the Frontier/Old West mythology and lore centers primarily around the cowboys and cattle drives (and the towns where they ended) and open range cattle ranching after the Civil War, along with some mention of fighting Native Americans in the Panhandle and West Texas. The Texas Revolution is treated as its own thing, and the settlement of the eastern half of the state just isn’t mentioned much.
I grew up with that, and never really put much thought into it otherwise. But a couple of years ago my family and I went on a long road trip to visit friends in S. Dakota, and passed through Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, New Mexico and Colorado on the way back.
The culture shock I experienced was that each state’s Frontier/Old West mythology and lore was different. Nebraska’s was different than Wyoming, which was different than Colorado’s. And they were all different than Texas’. Lots more emphasis on mining, homesteading, migration (Oregon Trail), and Native Americans than in Texas, and a lot less emphasis on cattle-related stuff.
One little thing that surprised me was the jaywalking. I’d be walking with friends and was left behind whenever I stopped for a red light. It was late 60s/early 70s, and I think it was part of the Screw The System* mentality.
*The Man was sending my friends to 'Nam and ‘keeping negroes in their place’, cops were busting hippies and ‘faggots’, so yeah, I still feel like I’m Fighting the Power when I jaywalk.
I was born and raised in West Virginia (Morgantown), but I’ve lived in the Baltimore area for decades. Morgantown is more like a ‘blue-state’ suburb of Pittsburgh than part of WV (the county voted for Trump both times, but by the lowest margins in the state).
But when I go back to visit friends and family in the more ‘deep red’ parts of the state, I almost always get ‘coal rolled’. People get their trucks rigged with the capability to blast big clouds of black smoke. They see my subcompact Honda with Maryland plates and blast away, laughing and honking.
The WV government recently announced (or proposed) improving their tax base by offering $12,000 to people to relocate there (so long as they can work remotely). That speaks volumes.
I would advise anyone considering this offer to spend a month there first and see how you like it.
Oh man, that reminds me of when I was dating this super progressive woman who was born and raised in Western Montana. She seemed to have respect and graciousness for most other religious belief (she wasn’t a huge fan of Evangelicalism, but was nice to individual Evangelicals)… Except Mormonism. I found the disdain for regular ole Mormons to be quite bizarre.
Late 80s. Moved from the northeast ( exurban, quasi-rural ) to the southeast. Now and again I ran into people greeting/introducing and not at all very long into the conversation came “Have you found a church yet?”
It was staggering to me. Not so much in the question in and of itself, but at what I thought was an overly bold, presumptuous, and personal question. Comparing notes with other newly relocated employees at work, they ran into the same thing.
It took a a hell of a lot of adroitness to respond in a way that didn’t peg me as a two-headed demon on a mission to secularize the bible belt, but yet not present me as a misguided wandering soul spewing entreaties to have others offer to save my soul.
In the end, as time went on, the area got more…well…cosmopolitan as the decades wore on, and the awkwardity ( is that a word? ) fixed itself.
It’s much worse than the idaho tales relate these days. I get culture shock just going one county over. The conspiracy theories about covid and vaccines, the trumpism, everything. All of it wrapped up “this is Biden’s doing”, I thought I raised my kids better than that☹️(yeah they’re part and parcel with their community)
Oregonian here who sometimes has reason to travel out by the OR/ID border and yeah, those people are nuckin’ futz on the way to batshit insane pretty much across the board. It’s a damned shame too, because Idaho has some absolutely gorgeous scenery and camping spots (not to mention the ubiquitous hot springs) but you have to dodge the residents to enjoy it and I’ve mostly given up on the concept. I content myself with the knowledge that their own stupidity re infectious disease and germ theory might just wipe out enough of them to let smart people come colonize the place so it’s safe for normal humans again. In the meantime if I have to go over there I comfort myself with the knowledge that the 80mph speed limit on I-84 is helping me get through it quicker.
Every time someone talks about this I am overcome with such a complete bewilderment over the motivation and effort behind such a fucking obnoxious gesture. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they are not intending to be assholes, they just see things differently. Then I hear about this, and the only explanation is “I decided to be an asshole.”
I hate to say it, but I think there’s a double reinforcement for such behavior at work here.
First, they finally have “permission” (from Trump and his lackeys) to unleash all the bad thoughts and behaviors they previously kept hidden, because it used to be socially unacceptable to air them publicly. Kind of like being able to unbutton your pants in a restaurant because you ate too much. Now they can do it and they realize there are few, if any, consequences.
Second, it allows them to be supported by their in-group. Not only is does the behavior garner no consequence, it is actively and enthusiastically encouraged by others in their Trump tribe. They are heroes to their chosen cohort.
I think this is right on the money, on both accounts. I mean, not in relation to coal rollers or whatever they’re called, but I recall seeing on another forum a disparaging comment that ended with, “It feels good to say that!” Really pissed me off. Maybe you had to be there.
An even more appalling example of culture shock happened to me in the Arkansas/Mississippi Delta in 2008.
I was shopping in a store and struck up a conversation with the owner (an elderly White man). In the course of that conversation, with Black customers in earshot, he casually used the n-word out loud. Amazingly, the reference wasn’t even hostile; he was actually referring to Black people with mild praise.
I reject the excuse of “you shouldn’t judge the entire region on one old guy” since none of the Black people present voiced a word of objection. The man assumed no one would complain, and he was right.
I was too shocked to say much of anything, and quietly left the store.
When we were first married, my wife and I moved to Lakeland Florida. This was 1973. We were from the Northeast and had never lived in the South. My blonde-haired blue-eyed whiter than white wife made an appointment with a local doctor. She sat down in the waiting room. The receptionist asked - twice - if she would prefer the “other” waiting room. She said no, she was fine. When she was called to the exam room she noticed the “other” waiting room was populated by white people. She had been waiting in the - ahem - colored waiting room and hadn’t taken notice. Appalled? You bet.
I was visiting my in-laws in the north eastern part of Arkansas and I met their neighbor. Inside of 120 seconds she was comfortable telling me that what she liked about there area was that there weren’t so many n******.
The first time I went to Mountain Home, Arkansas we went to go listen to music in the town square and it dawned on me that everyone was white. I had a similar experience when I lived in Grant County (98% white) which took some getting used to. But then there are areas of Arkansas and Mississippi I found myself in where I was the only white face in the crowd. It was weird in both cases.