[lbo-talk] Blog Post. The Road Beckons: Excerpt from Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate

[michael yates]

Doug chimes in with something he has said before. Whatever authentic means, I think that nonurban people are no more authentic than urban folks. After all, plenty of urbanites came originally from the hinterlands. And I have run into a whole lot of people who are pathetically suspicious of city dwellers, without themselves having ever spent any time in a city. And if I ever had to live in, say, Joplin, MO, I would surely begin immediately to consume large quantities of drugs. In Robert Dole's hometown of Russell. Kansas, everyone I saw seemed completely brain dead. Living there would be, in the words of the song, Waltzing Matilda, "worse than dying."   

So much ugly stuff happens in all parts of the USA that I often wish I had the skill to be like Scott Nearing and move to the wilderness. Somewhere else in the world. Any suggestions?