Nothing At All Against You City Boys...

[fmgee]

I grew up on a little over 4000 acres in Australian high country. A great place to be a kid. I now settle for a third of an acre a block away from somd pretty serious woods on Vancouver Island. It is a little strange that my kids think it is normal to have a view of the sea and snow capped mountains from there school yard.

 

[jkrug]

Well if rural is as rural does then I'm counting myself as a country boy. Never liked or lived in the big cities. Always been out in the county, the bush or in a small town which is where I currently reside. No matter where I am at the time my heart and soul always long to be in the outdoors the more remote the better.
So anyways right now I'm a small town Canadian country boy!! :D

 

[buster]

I fall in the suburbanites with a rural heart category. We live in the burbs but are members of 4H.

 

[beefeater33]

Grew up on a Hog farm in Ohio. We had about 60 sows, farrow to finish operation. Farmed about 600 acres. Never had much money, but we always had plenty of food and ate good........

Now I live on 6 acres, way of the road, Peace and quiet, wouldn't have it any other way!.......... ::

 

[Sjmiller CPG]

Live in the hills of East Tennessee. Town of about 500 people or so. Thirty minute drive to the nearest grocery of any size. Over an hour to nearest B&M shop. Thank goodness for online tobacco shops.

 

[pipestud]

I live in Robinson, TX., population 7,400. Guess my hunk of soil is small by Texas standards as I live on seven acres and can see my nearest neighbor' s house without the use of binoculars.

 

[hunter185]

Myself, 6 horses and a dog reside on my 21ac in central Alberta. Property is partially forest and minutes from the mountains. Love it!

 

[buroak]

I have neighbors within 200 yards all around (we are mostly clustered on land unfit for the surrounding row crops), but some of those neighbors are horses, goats, and chickens.

 

[freakiefrog]

I'm a born and raise country boy who moved to the city for a job, but the concrete and florescent lights make me feel claustrophobic. I hate that I can't hear cars coming down the road for 5 minutes before they get to my house.
I miss the whippoorwill songs and coyotes in the evening.

 

[robwoodall]

Hmmm,
I'm a city boy at heart but, kind of opposite of freakiefrog, I moved to the country for a job.
I teach at a small, rural college, and live on an 18 acre hay field. I do not grow hay, but I let my neighbor have the hay if he'll do all the work.
I like the quietness, but I miss the convenience of a mid-size city.

 

[lochinvar]

I live in Gatlinburg, TN (the mountains) on about 100 acres beside the Great Smoky Mountains Natl. Park that has been in the family since before the Civil War. I'm not a fan of most cities, save Boston, and really I don't like anywhere in the flatlands (your Oklahoma, your Ohio, the deep South, etc) either. I get weirded out without a few mountains around.

 

[mso489]

Hey, I'm a townee from forever, Chicagoland. But I've been surrounded by farm saavy people all my life. My dad spent summers on a sand scratch farm in Michigan with no water or electric, and he slept in a pup tent away from the house and lived pretty primitive with his beloved dog Spot. My late wife grew up mostly in a small town but spent a lot of time on her grandparent's tobacco farm sticking tobacco and accompanying her grandpa to the general store. My wife grew up way out in the country between the Mississippi River and the Iowa line in Missouri, without electric or running water until she was in middle school, went to a little tiny school that ran off teachers almost annually. Her family had a cattle farm and she still maintains the land with much help from cousins. She says she never enjoyed camping so much because that's the way she lived as a young girl, hauling water. So I'm just a townee, but steeped in farm country stories.

 

[plugugly]

Voorhees definition of rural, "I can take a pee in any direction and not be seen." is way the best I ever heard!
Plugugly

 

[aldecaker]

Perique- great thread idea. I am a transplanted bumpkin who has been a townie for way longer than is good for my mental health. Anyone who spent their childhood in a wide-open rural setting with more livestock than people and winds up having to live in "the mess" will know exactly what I mean! Anyway, it is strange that our perspectives are 180 out. Instead of thinking of pipe smoking as urban-focused, I guess I associate it more with my early memories of (usually old) dairy farmers, milk truck drivers, old codgers hanging out down at the co-op, etc. Even in a historical context, I tend to think more of, say, rural southern types enjoying a pipe while watching the barges go by, or whiling away some time at the fishing hole. Maybe a coastal fisherman puffing absently while mending his nets, or a lumberman at a far-off timber camp having a puff around the fire after a long day's work in the woods. I know for a fact that much of my enjoyment of pipe smoking is some of that mental imagery of when life was not easier, but maybe a little more slow-paced and deliberate; less pell-mell all the time. For urban smoking, I always think of cigars and robber barons!

 

[wyfbane]

I am a suburbanite and I cannot lie, it's a comfy life. I have had long periods of dis-comfy life in the Army, so I am content where I am.
I do have a hint of envy for those of you on acreage. It would be nice, as well.
=D

 

[peckinpahhombre]

I love rural life. Without it, I could not have The Barn.

 

[frozenchurchwarden]

I'm in the middle of grain country, but you have to allow some wiggle room.
Now my uncle, he grows a few thousand acres on the same land that we've been farming since the 1800's, that just happens to now run along a high volume traffic corridor of the capital city. Driving 30 foot wide implements through rush hour traffic and major overpass construction is "normal". They board about a hundred horses too.

There is now a Wal-Mart just down the road from a dozen 10,000 bushel grain bins.

When the city moves in and the farm doesn't change, what do you call it?

 

[prairiedruid]

Rural Minnesota here......live on 5 acres with a grove and there is only 1 other house on my road. Quiet peaceful mornings/evenings sitting on my deck enjoying a slow smoke

 

[Perique]

"All I Can Do Is Write About It"
Well this life that I've lead has took me everywhere

There ain't no place I ain't never gone

But its kind of like the saying that you heard so many times

Well there just ain't no plae like home

Did you ever see a she-gator protect her young

Or a fish in a river swimming free

Did you ever see the beauty of the hills of Carolina

Or the sweetness of the grass in Tennessee

And Lord I can't make any changes

All I can do is write 'em in a song

I can see the concrete slowly creepin'

Lord take me and mine before that comes
Do you like to see a mountain stream a-flowin'

Do you like to see a youngun with his dog

Did you ever stop to think about, well, the air your breathin'

Well you better listen to my song

And Lord I can't make any changes

All I can do is write 'em in a song

I can see the concrete slowly creepin'

Lord take me and mine before that comes
I'm not tryin' to put down no big cities

But the things they write about us is just a bore

Well you can take a boy out of ol' Dixieland

But you'll never take ol' Dixie from a boy

And Lord I can't make any changes

All I can do is write 'em in a song

I can see the concrete slowly creepin'

Lord take me and mine before that comes

'Cause I can see the concrete slowly creepin'

Lord take me and mine before that comes

 

[Perique]

"Country Ain't Country"
He was raised on a tractor in overalls and boots

Been to college and then law school since leaving his roots

Came home in a Lexus, he left in a Ford

Country ain't country no more.
He told his daddy catch up with the times

He said now a days people trade heifers online

Dad ain't sealing deals with a handshake like before

Country ain't country no more.

No, country ain't country no more.
The back forty was sold to make up for hard times

Then sold by the half acre lot overnight

The houses went up and the trees were cut down

And there went the finest deer hunting around

Lord, everyone's locking their doors

'Cause country ain't country no more.
Now his dad sits in traffic looking 'round at the change

Watching crews turn the county road into four lanes

The old Sunday drive has turned into a chore

Country ain't country no more.

Lord, country ain't country no more.
The back forty was sold to make up for hard times

Then sold by the half acre lot overnight

The houses went up and the trees were cut down

And there went the finest deer hunting around

Lord, everyone's locking their doors

'Cause country ain't country no more.
There's no turning back

And you just can't ignore

That country ain't country no more.

No, country ain't country no more...
Country certainly isn't country anymore...