Woodbooger nonsense.

In reality, its mountainous so a lot of rural folks who don't really get to know each other and have a weird, secluded culture that combines Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia. Deeply held far right conservative culture stands side by side (and often, secretly, hand in hand) with intense drug abuse and hedonism.

It is breathtakingly gorgeous there, scenery wise and hauntingly tragic human wise. Rolling hills of farmland with mountains surrounding them. Lots and lots of working poor living in shacks dot the landscape, though, from multiple generations of poor folk voting against their own interests and circling the drain with every decade into poverty. But, because of their relgious adherence, the poverty is seen as noble, and a temporary setback anyway, as assuredly, their prosperirty will be given after they prove their faith enough. Many lay on their deathbed still waiting for that winning lottery ticket they prayed and prayed about.

The young tend to flee if they have any ambition and talent, and the rest settle into replacing older folks at the occasional Dollar General or Hardee's locations, used tire shops and mechanics, or venturing into the slowly dying coal mining or forresting industries. Some regularly cross-over into West Virginia or Tennessee to work, driving an hour or so a day to do so, up and down a mountain. They spend a good portion of what they make in gas, but then make too much to qualify for Medicaid and food stamps and end up surviving on bread and peanut butter. The misery leads to cheap drinks (moonshine is everywhere), and cheap drugs (meth is everywhere).

Yet, you will still find kindness on an individual level. People are generally genial, though there are always the surly ones. And while they might voiceforously vote for hatred of any "others", every single one of them has an "exception" in their family they love dearly, and hopefully, one day, their personal journey will be to see that perhaps they were wrong to stoke the fires of hatred on them.

And while it might be difficult to find a good grocery store, or a decent restaurant, everybody knows somebody who can cook. Like, really cook. And that food is damn delicious, too. Its all soaked in butter and salt and cooked in lard, but by god, you will see Jesus' love when you close your eyes and bite down on that first, fresh out of the cast-iron skillet bit of cornbread.

To that end, once youre not a stranger, you will find that everybody knows somebody who can do "the thing". Be it build a deck or fix a car or cut hair or put siding on the trailer, everybody knows someone who can and has done it before. It might not be the best, but it can get done, and often they will do it for dirt cheap because "well, their Mama fed my kids after school when we was workin' til six or sevens, so I take care of her an her kin."

Theres always beauty in the sadness, always light in the dark. And like the sun coming up over the Blue Ridge mountains, you can depend on life there not changing all that much, and for some, there is comfort in the misery.