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Sorry about that outburst. Consider it a testament to the vividness of Mike Yates' writing. Reading last it last night and listening this morning on Doug's show, bought back many, many impressions I formed over the years of climbing and hiking trips in the West and my interactions with people in small town USA and how these places have changed a lot over time.
I learned climbing in Yosemite and it had a particular culture that was an extension of the early ecology and environmental groups---fostered by the old Sierra Club. The essential concept was leave no trace you've been there and use as little equipment as possible. That idea never got translated much to other times and places for some reason.
Climbing got full blown commercial by the 90s and the whole ethic changed into a consumer-gym culture. I was very glad to have known backpacking, rafting and climbing before that kind of development.
So maybe that kind of change explains something about small town USA. I am guessing here, but towns need their own local economic base, their own reason for being there, and a history to develop a interesting and creative something, call it an identity. When that economic base is gone much of its history goes, and all the local `color' (good or bad)) goes with it. There is something about the uniformity of capitalism-culture that destroys people and places, and satellite dishes seem to finish off what's left.
CG