If I know you all as well as I think.

How many boners did you pop when you read that the first Direction book will have stats for the Emis

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CW shaddupurmout', an go down to the store to get my 'medicine'...and be sure I gots change comin' back.  I'm gimmin' ya $8, an I 'spect my quarters back.  I gots to play the Kino later...
 
Ya gowin' to make me get this belt off boy, yer gowin' know it right.  Get Jakk his med'cine for I has to git off'n this porchswing an show you how.
 
You hear that rumbling in the distance?  That's Little Joe suddenly getting a seizure, and he doesn't even know why...
 
*keeps my hand clamped over my ears and rhythmically smack my forehead against the wooden walls to drown out the sounds of the screams that torment me outside and in*
 
*stops beating forehead against the wall for a moment*


You know, I once had a dream where I played soccer with Prince in the afterlife.


*continues with mindnumbing headbanging*
 
I will now thread-jack my own thread, 'cause I'm fucking meta today.


Jakk, CW, and all other Southerners: have you noticed how rural folks, when they meet a new person, have to put that person in the context of people they already know?  To wit: "Who's ol' boy izzat?"  They link to you via a complicated chain of associations of family, friends, church membership, etc.  "Now that there is Jesse Sluder, and his daddy is ol' Bill Sluder from the 4-H.  He's one 'em South Fork Sluders, now, not them Sluders that live up on Piney Ridge.  He goes to Central Baptist and his lil' girl just married that Franklin boy come down from the college up in Hazard..."  Et cetera.  I first noticed this phenomenon in the coal country of south-west Virginia, but I'm convinced it's a central part of the rural mentality.
 
It could be because of the insular nature of rural communities. In a lot of cases, those folk are suspicious of outsiders/strangers. The reciting of the family tree, so to speak, is to show that the person is, indeed, a local. Or not, as the case may be. But it gives a frame of reference, for good or ill. If the Sluders brew moonshine, then that is a starting point to judge the person.


I'm not saying all people do this, but it does seem to facilitate matters for a lot of these people.
 
That element is definitely present, Van, but I think it goes deeper than that.  I think country-ass folks simply don't know how to deal with you on a personal level unless they can establish a frame of reference, and the way they do that is to figure out how you're connected to folks they already know.
 
H.O. I think it's all part of the same ball of wax. It goes back to the insular nature of those communities. If they know who you're connected to, they are much more willing to trust and talk to you. If they don't, they're suspicious and wary, thus making them less likely to talk to you. I think it's all tied up together.


Still Then they deal with you only so far as they're required. It's a bit different in business. If you go into a small town business, you'll most likely get a cold shoulder, but they'll still deal with you. If it's a social setting, then they'll travel down the chain, so to speak. They'll tend to judge you by the person who brought you. If you don't know anyone, then it's much less likely you'll even be invited to their soirees......
 
In Ireland, this problem is circumnavigated by the fact that everyone is socially related to each other, in some way.


Unless you're a foreigner, in which case we'll either be nice to you, hospitality tradition and all, or pretend to be nice to you in order to cheat you out of your money.
 
In cities, you still play the "Who do you know/where are you from?" game.  It's just usually on a smaller scale.  "I met Jack, who works at the Whitney, who dated Arelene, who works at the LCJ, and he lives on the West side, and I used to date that stellar gal who dumped me for some fella who interned at the Whitney..."


We like to put people in context, in part because we build communities that way, from direct contact.  By putting folks in relation, they aren't outsiders, they are part of our community, and we'd rather be able to rely on them, even through a distant network.  Goes back to our tribal days, I suspect, when REAL outsiders were dangerous commodities, but as they came in, intermarried, they diffused through the population to become part of that community.


In rural communities those chains of acquaintance are even more important though, because of the distance, often, between residences.  You keep track of your neighbors, because you may need to rely on them, or visa versa in the future, and building them into your sense of community makes them a part of your extended family, your "tribe" as it were.  


To a lesser extent, that's what we do when we high five folks at a football game--folks we don't even know, but are bonded because of our love of a team, we identify with them and take them into our sense of community and tribe by their participation.  We do the same for folks we don't know, whoe are going to the same bar, and our bartender seems to know them and brings them into the circle.  


We're nice, social animals, and we tend to aggregate into communities, and look for commonalities.  Be they nationality, ethnicity, religion, or even just locality.  We'd rather have folks around we can place, and bring into our internal sense of tribe--because the strangers are the ones likely to be carrying sharp sticks and pointy things to perforate our weezands and steal our goats and daughters...
 
Jukashi--Especially American Mutt-Irish who want to see the "auld sod" and claim some kind of connection for a home that their families haven't been to for a hundred years...
 
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