New
#141
You'll get all kinds of definitions of 'hillbilly." Mine is my ma's family. She grew up on a 160 acre homesteaded hardscrabble farm in the Ozarks in Missouri, about 10 miles from the Arkansas border.
Hill country.
But I was born in Chicago, and ma had been citified. She had left to become a typist for the govenment during WW2, when she turned 18. Electricity came in after she left. I spent summers with her ma and dad in the 50's down there. Outhouse, bucket well water, and electric only for some lighting and a radio.
Wood for the pot-bellied stove and kitchen stove. Chickens running all over the place. Went to town to get ice for the icebox every couple weeks. Bathe in a wash tub. Run around naked until you're 5 years old. Never saw anybody else. Pick off ticks every night before turning in. Wake up with spider bites. It was all made up for by grandma's fried chicken and blackberry cobbler.
To me at least. Wouldn't want to live like that as an adult. I do like modern.
I went down to the old homestead some years ago and it's all changed. Still rural and backcountry, but there's a beautiful brick house there. All the conveniences. Nice couple owned it now. My ma's old house was still there, ready to fall down. Didn't go too close because the new owner was worried about liability and was about to tear it down. It looked so tiny compared to his brick house, which wasn't big at all. But I would never call the new owners hillbillys.
Quote
