I often find myself deeply conflicted by my semi-working class upbringing 👪
I am the child of two college educated parents, but they were homesteaders, and I grew up in a very working class rural neighborhood – and my parents had very working class jobs at the Center for Disability Services.
Having college educated parents that grew up in the suburbs always put me in a different social class then most of the more working class folks who parents graduated high school if even that. My parents had a professional mindset that really wasn’t even in the vocabulary of the hillbillies who lived in trailers down the street.
I was and still am super jealous of them. They always had four wheelers, lots of guns, and livestock. Pigs and cattle. Big bonfires. I’m well aware of what pig manure smells like or for that the distinctively pungent smell of kerosene used to keep their mobile homes warm in the winter – besides the woodstoves they had jerry rigged up. To say nothing of those slurry trucks from Stanton’s Dairy in Coeymans that would traverse the road a few times a year to fertilize the field up the road.
But at the same time, I found it difficult to find connections with them as they were so culturally different in their upbringings and beliefs – the hillbilly way of looking at the world was so foreign to the world I knew with post graduate educated parents. At the same time, despite my college education and professional career I find it difficult to connect with the more professional and educated types with my redneck and small town upbringing.
I want to go back to the country and not just for a weekend trip. Do real hillbilly shit, although I know damn well it will take money, as I don’t have the skills or even the grit and family connections to make it alone in the country. Now I don’t want to live in a fancy house – I’d rather have livestock and junk in my front yard and a garbage burner out back – I just know how important having money is to survive out in the country when you lack so much else that true country boys and girls have to survive and make a life off the land.
Why I don’t talk much about owning my own land and living off-grid these days 🚜
Sometimes the best thing to do with an automatic investment is to just let it run its course. Let the bimonthly deposits go in on schedule, let the markets grow, ignore the ups and downs, know that better days are ahead but don’t give it a lot of thought in the near term.
The truth is my hope and vision for the future hasn’t changed much though my expectations have been somewhat tempered watching the rate the markets grow, my quickly aging parents, the progress of my career. I realize probably within the next decade my parents are either likely to pass on or retire to a nursing home when they are no longer able to take on their homestead. My sister has little interest in their five acre property in Westerlo, so it will either get sold or I’ll take it up as my own home.
It’s not everything I would want in land but there is a lot of possibility with the property and it’s within commuting distance of my current job. Another thing two I’m considering is that I’m within 5 years from having twenty years in with the state retirement system at which point I will get a big bump in my retirement benefits. My current apartment isn’t great but it works well enough and is super convenient on the bus line and not a long ride to work.
On that land, if it’s someday mine I could rework it more into my own vision of the land.
How I learned to be happy with New York 😊
For the longest time, since the implement of the burn ban in 2009, I have seriously thought about leaving New York State. I’ve watched in frustration as do-gooders continue to lock down our public lands in the name of wilderness preservation, demanding more restrictions on our gun rights from the SAFE Act to SAFE Act 2.0 that made it illegal to purchase ammunition without a background check, or even a simple .22 “semi-auto” rifle for hunting squirrels without a pistol permit like I bought before SAFE Act 2.0 for $150 a few years back. Or the games people and towns go through to register and ride ATVs on private trail systems, because state politics is forever hijacked by the environmentalists. Or how well-meaning, but the still problematic drive to decarbonize the state is leading to thousands of acres of farmland and open space to be developed, at the same time electricity prices continue their spiral upwards.
My complaints about the state are well known to anybody who regularly reads the blog. They are pretty obvious to anybody who lives in Upstate, especially in rural areas. It’s not hard to see who often gets the raw end of the stick in New York, when more then 2 out of 3 New Yorkers live in the metropolitan region, where the state’s liberal policies may be idealistic but come back to bite those who don’t live in the city or suburbs. It kind of sucks to live in Upstate New York. But at least for me, it’s a Faustian bargain. Or as Dan Halloran said to then-Senate Democratic Leader Malcolm Smith, when he tried to buy a spot on NYC Mayor’s ballot — “It’s All About the F-ing Money.”
That’s how I’ve felt about New York for many years. I stay because I make pretty good money, especially nowadays. Maybe I feel like I’m still a bit underpaid, but I do make good money. To leave New York would be to leave my job and leave the money behind. And nowadays, as the Data Services Director, I would not only be leaving behind the money, but a job that I actually really kind of like that challenges my mind, involves working with code and scripting, and being able to work with smart programmers and computer system administrators. I get paid to write SQL queries, export databases, clean data and work with a great team. It’s the kind of career of wanted for a long time, but didn’t have an easy way to transition into, as my college degree was in Political Science, as I found the advanced theoretical math required for Computer Science to be difficult. Plus I’ve always had these anti-technology bent, in part learning how toxic these devices we call computers are both from the hazardous materials they are made out of and how they warp our brains and our politics.
At this point it’s just too hard to walk away. I told myself for years I’ll move out of state the first possible minute that I can reasonably afford to — be it once I have enough money saved up, once my parents pass away, or once I retire. The date just kept getting pushed further and further into the future. And while the news headlines about what state government was doing to make the lives of Upstate New Yorkers worse and worse really grinds at me, one of the best way to avoid it, is to just turn it off. Don’t follow the news very carefully. Most of the most objectionable things that the do-gooders are trying to force our throats, are actually quite unpopular and as such aren’t vigorously enforced despite the stern warnings of the politicians. Watch what is happening in reality, on the ground by real people, and not what the media and politicians are saying.
I am quite fortunate to have a great career, good pay, and a life that has been fun over the past 17 years since I graduated from college. I have enjoyed the travel, camping, hiking, spending time in the woods and having fires. And as much as I have romantic visions of moving to a rural, free state like Missouri, South Dakota, Idaho, or West Virginia, the truth is things aren’t all wine and roses there either. Nearly every state has bad laws, stupid politicians who egos trample on your freedoms. And the Faustian bargain is real — no place I could move would have the career opportunity or make the money that I am currently making. It’s not like I object to my work, I’ve had the chance to work with many great clients over the years, and even when I don’t agree on all issues, I do agree with them on many things, and New York has excellent consumer protections and those for renters. After all, I am a liberal Democrat, maybe of a wilder breed. And it’s not like we shouldn’t be doing something to address to climate crisis, even if I think some of state’s actions by the urban politicians are a bit misguided.
Faust in the bible made the mistake of not only selling his soul for twenty-four years of supreme knowledge, but squandering his gift. Faust didn’t maximize his gift, use it for good though he sold his soul to get it. I have been a careful steward of money over the years, living frugally and carefully saving and investing for a better tomorrow — namely that off-grid cabin that I wanted in a free state. While I am realizing that the second half of the dream may not be possible if I want to keep up that part of the Faustian bargain, it’s not necessarily to say much of the first half of the dream isn’t possible to largely make into a reality, duly noting the constraints of state building code, the various laws as implemented as rules in reality, and the long unpleasant commute that will involve to get far enough away from cities for at least some freedom. The thing is I could wait and save even more — but cost of land and building is no longer the major constraint — but number of years I can practically expect in my second half of my life. Old age, time, is cruelest joke as you get deeper into your forties.
I don’t like all the compromises, but maybe it’s a way to live with myself, and a live a life closer to what I want without walking away from the money.
Redneck as Vulgarity 🧑🌾
The other day I was talking with this guy who kept complaining about my use of the word redneck to describe good ol’ boy, hard-working, living off-the-land country people. He kept correcting me, saying the term redneck was patently offensive, in essence a “white nigger”, leaving aside the fact that some African Americans have adopted their own use of the word “nigger”. I’ve always though obscenity was kind of silly, as words only have as much meaning as you give them.
If you want to call yourself something offensive, is it offensive?
The best way to take a bite off obscenity is to use a word casually, like has long been common with the word “fuck”, in the sense of saying, that’s “really fucked up”. And indeed, a lot of rural people have long adopted the word redneck, not as an obscenity but a symbol of pride — self-reliance, hard working, not afraid of mud or muck. Not the backwards, racist meaning some give it.
I like the term redneck, as I think it describes a good lifestyle, one that is largely self-reliant and sustainable. One that isn’t based around high consumption, but making the best of the natural and mechanical resources available to you. Rednecks are often highly skilled in mechanical and natural systems, a point that is often ignored by the popular press. There is a lot of skill and knowledge that goes into farming and homesteading, to say nothing about mechanics. Just because a fix isn’t pretty, doesn’t mean it’s not real or effective.
I don’t buy that idea that calling somebody a redneck is a hate term, especially if they are more then willing to adopt the term. I don’t think the redneck lifestyle is pejorative or bad, indeed I would argue it’s good as it’s often more sustainable then the high-consumption lifestyle of the suburbanite — and closer to the land and realities of natural world. Sure, in the suburbs you have your soy-milk in your disposable plastic container, and maybe it looks good on a per-capita basis, but it’s not as real or close to the environment as a dairy goat or pig you’ve slaughtered yourself.
I don’t think calling a redneck a rural person has the same effect. There are plenty of yuppies and gentrified folk in Columbia County who raise sheep or horses. But they aren’t the same as the trailer-living, wrenching their own cars, pig-raising, hard-working country boys who live a life of mud and muck and grease, and aren’t such a distance from the land the live on.
Propane 🏮
Propane is widely sold as a cleaner and cheaper fuel to heating oil, especially in rural Western NY in areas lacking natural gas lines. Oil still remains dominant though in rural parts around the Hudson Valley. I don’t know if electricity is that much of a threat to propane, although it’s obvious that propane dealers see the writing on the wall, or at least are pretty fearful about heat pumps and greater electrification of rural residences. A farm or rual residence might be a good place for solar panels, and if you can make your own energy, why pay a propane dealer?
I have some experience working with propane having used it a fair bit for camping over the past six and half years with a twenty gallon tank and my big buddy heater, propane stove and lantern. Propane has its pros and cons for sure — it’s a relatively clean fuel but it can get very dirty from the oils on connectors taking them in and apart in the woods. But certainly propane is a much cleaner and more reliable fuel then the awful liquid gas stoves I used to use, especially when burning regular gasoline.
When I own my own land and have an off-grid cabin, I will probably use propane but I’m not sure if I would want to use it as a primary heating fuel, as it’s relatively expensive and makes you dependent on propane deliveries, which can be difficult if not impossible in remote country. Plus it sure seems l like some of the propane dealers engage in scammy business models. While bulk propane delivery is much cheaper, getting a 100 lb or even a 30 lb tank might be a better option, as you can take it to any propane filler to get filled and have multiple tanks around.
Most energy consumed by propane is by far for heating. While I might keep a propane wall heater or a big buddy heater for warming things up quickly in the cabin when things are cold, I think the best method of heating remains wood, harvested and processed yourself. Wood is a carbon neutral fuel if harvested from your own acreage, it’s not dependent on market prices. Propane though is good for cooking, although if you have a wood-stove going, you might as well make breakfast and other meals in a cast iron skillet right on the wood-stove, rather then consuming expensive gas.
In the summer, an outdoors cook-stove might be a good option, although in my experience in Boy Scouts, cooking on wood isn’t as easy as you might think to control heat levels, and it’s a lot of waiting for coals to build up. Maybe though in a regular outdoor cook-stove it’s easier to cook then an smokey, open fire. At least with a cook-stove you can ventilate the smoke up and above and not have it in your face, and to boot, papers and wrappers can be disposed of after cooking so you have less kitchen trash around. But I don’t know, there is definitely some advantages to cooking with gas, especially in rural areas without access to high-voltage electricity.
Brandon Rhyder – Haggard
I need to get out of the city, drive a country mile
Get back to my roots, before two worlds collide
I want sausage biscuit gravy, sweet tea from a jug
So jump into my pickup truck, and I’ll fire it upWe burn our trash out in the backyard in a barrel
We feed our dogs and cats our table scraps
We get our eggs straight from the hen house, and our water from a well
Dig our onions and our taters from the ground
Yippee yi yo, yippee yi yay, I’m feelin' kind of haggard todayI want to get out on the river, catch a mess of fish
Throw a big ol’ party, that you don’t want to miss
We’ll have washer pits and horseshoes, shine and chocolate pie
'Cause when I’m on the swing with her it makes me almost high
Reminds me of traveling in Western Pennsylvnia, smelling the cow shit, the burnt plastic in the burning barrels, the oil wells, the kerosene and coal smoke from the rural homes. Beautiful, wild country, even if it's been blasted away from the explosions of powder and the coal mining.
