The Cracker Barrel: Life is different here

Life in the woods is different from life in the city. Not necessarily better; but different. Recollections of my own arrival here many decades ago are speckled with frustrations. Compared to the urban pace of Chicago, life in the boondocks seemed to move in slow motion. ADVERTISEMENT Cars putzed along as if their drivers were half asleep. Clerks seemed more eager to chitchat than to ring up your sale and get you out of the store. Phone calls to local contractors might not be returned for days, even weeks, especially during deer season. At first I found these differences maddening. Didn't rural folks understand that time was money? Were they missing some gears, so that their only speed was slow? Hadn't they learned to read a clock? Anthropologists call such a reaction culture shock. It ranges from mild to severe, and presents the newcomer with choices. You can adapt and fit in. You can tolerate, but keep your distance. You can resist and try to make the natives change. Read more of 'The Cracker Barrel' Or you can reject the culture, hold it in contempt and continue to do things your own way, much as European settlers did when they encountered Native Americans here in the New World. The choice each newcomer makes has repercussions for everybody. As more and more people move into this part of the north woods, tensions are sure to grow. Now that I've lived here long enough to qualify as a local yokel, I'd like to make a few suggestions, in the hope of averting unnecessary grief. Dear newcomer/visitor: ADVERTISEMENT Please don't pass us on the right, especially on a gravel shoulder. It's illegal, it's dangerous and one of these days it's going to send us into a serious case of road rage. Don't cut down trees unless it's truly necessary. It takes a tree 40 or 50 years to amount to anything. That's how long you're setting us all back when you cut one. Don't dump your garbage where it doesn't belong. Dependable trash removal services are available. Quit manicuring your lake lot right up to the water's edge. The more fertilizer and herbicides you put on your lawn, the faster the lakes will atrophy, leaving us all up the polluted creek. Run your personal watercraft out in the middle of the lake, away from the shoreline. Better yet, sell it and buy a canoe. Kindly respect the fact that most of us live here by choice, not chance. If we wanted lots of noise and enjoyed traffic jams and didn't mind commuting two or three hours a day, we'd move back to the city. As it is, we're here because we treasure quiet and wildness and a saner pace. Life in the the woods involves a pay cut. Time is not money; time, as Thoreau put it, is but the stream we go a'fishing in. If money's at the top of your priority list, go back to the 'urbs or 'burbs and devote your life to acquiring bundles of it. Remember that rural culture is different from and just as legitimate as any other. There is no reason to expect country folks to change their ways. Ours is a flourishing and generally healthy way of life. We'd like to see it stay that way. Collections of Craig Nagel's columns are available at CraigNagelBooks.com.