Deciding to take a trip out to Madison County a week after West Virginia made me realize in how many ways the landscapes are similar, even while they are different. Less coal and more cows in Madison County, but many of rural homesteads and farms really aren’t that different. Hills are smaller and hollows less deep, but in many ways the people are all alike, trying to make a living out of a tough, rural landscape.

Modern American culture is much more standardized then one might want to admit. We all use and consume same products, the J.D. tractors in New York aren’t that different then West Virginia. Mobile homes and double-wides look much the same, the same breeds of goat and cattle are raised all over. People raise hogs and chickens all over, the make-shift shelters and pens really don’t look all that much different. The wood and coal smoke isn’t all that much different nor the pungent smell of farm country in the autumn after and during harvest time.

We are often told that West Virginia is somehow different then New York. But if anything, the accents aren’t much different or indeed in some parts of rural New York the accents might be even stronger. The thing is most things aren’t that different, as rural culture is both nationalized, as are products and services. And the land is the land, livestock husbandry that works in one part of nation works equally well in other parts of nation, using similar products. And people generally scrape by a living in much the same way, no matter which part of the rural country they reside in.