I got interested in rural culture decades ago. My wife and I like to travel by car and we leave the interstates when time allows. I live in far suburbia which sort of morphs into rural. Far as I can tell, rural–ism–comes our way.
Then another item came along which caused me to want to dig into it.
Coincidentally, we had the discussion on Australia which sort of related to it.

You need a lot of people to have a culture and a rural culture requires low population density which combination means a LOT of land. And there has to be a reason. That is agriculture. The agriculture characterized by maps with gridded roads due NSEW runs from southern Ohio to western Nebraska, east Texas to the border and, likely, north of Edmonton. You don’t find much of it in the Old South, due to terrain.
And there is much other agriculture in favored areas like western NY state and PA and some areas of MO and AR.
The combination is HUGE.
So I dug into things like land prices, looked at farm houses from google earth, checked out the little towns–what was available and so forth–and found a uniformity. The school. The churches. Which, theology aside, function as social service agencies from which in addition people are recruited for other volunteer work.
There are a lot of comm colleges, university branches, small private schools.

And, in the last few decades, a Superwalmart at which anything is available and which usually include a pharmacy and an optometry shop.

You don’t need the urban thing.

Whatever it is….there’s a hell of a lot of it.

The value of rural culture is so immense and yet so unrecognized.

My brother is a county commissioner in a small population county in New Mexico. He’s trying to get the state, which pisses away tons on diversity and equity consultants, to help pay for a new courthouse/jail. Sure, might be a little less expensive to drive prisoners to another town. But that complex is 33 jobs. It is huge in a little town.

A little town where I guarantee CRT isn’t even on the radar much less on the curricula. Kids can still learn to rodeo because it teaches ranch skills. The sound of a siren is so rare folks turn out to help whoever is in trouble.

Was in a bump shop just west of Flint, MI. Some farm land visible, a shopping mall about a mile south, some homes, all in sight. Nine of the ten jobs on his board were car-deer accidents.

I could get a couple without leaving my porch, until they ran out or the survivors figured which way was up.

But I guess I was making the point that the rural population can have, consciously or not, the feeling of independence. Many of those small towns have something like a “health center”. Probably not a hospital but one can be confident that entry into the health care system is available.
Deer might not run out. We’ll be okay.
Since the advent of radio, nobody from Chautaqua or Lyceum has been on stage in the opera house. But it’s still there. A reminder.
99% of the time, the county seat has a war memorial. Our guys….
I live in Grand Haven, MI. Before WW II, a Coast Guard cutter named the Escanaba was home ported here. Went into the Atlantic when called. With some sharp doctors and really brave volunteers, they learned to resuscitate those dead of cold shock when pitched into the North Atlantic. Sank two U boats. Was sunk, two survivors. The town was so shocked that they raised money for another one. Not even a rounding error in the war budget, but it WAS OUR GODDAMMED BOAT!

Again, as I say, trying to get a handle on rural culture.

Keeping your hastas and tulips uneaten is a source of conversation starters.

Got a relation in Texas where the feral hogs are getting worse. The Highway Department authorized 85mph on the interstate which goes through that area. Feral hogs don’t wear reflectors. Unfortunately, there is no generally accepted recipe collection for them.

I know a guy in Barron County, northwestern Wisconsin, that gets permits for six deer every fall, which he fills without even leaving his 15 acre property. And still he’s hit at least 4 deer on the road in ten years. Rural police and sheriffs keep a little list in their pocket. A deer is hit on the road, and the cop calls a number. A family in tight circumstances gets some quality protein.

If you’ve ever been brave enough to read the Flashman series by George McDonald Fraser, it has a lot of the same humor. If you haven’t you should read about Flashy. For starters you probably won’t be able to soon, as the writing is so far from politically correct to be in a different universe. For another, they’re damn good stories based on a real person who was a 19th century Zelig: present at the major events of the time. It is so well written and so historically accurate that it was debated for years as to whether or not it was fiction.

So if we only count the rifle permits, that’s 600k guys. And if only one tenth of one percent go nuts, that’s 6000 rifle armed maniacs. Not to mention the guys who don’t hunt.

We’ve been through Iowa a number of times–love the Iowa Machine Shed–but mostly on I80. Went NE from Omaha to, iirc, 44. It has dots along it on the atlas. Beautiful. Just enough relief to make the corn factory look better than in, say, Kansas.

Did a bit of research and am not sure, but maybe 12%-15% of men outside the big cities in Iowa are veterans. As a cop said when we had gotten a bad accident straightened up, first responders like to find former military on scene because “they know what to do and don’t choke”. And, if all we had of combat training is Basic, we have small arms familiarization, but in the Army, at least basic Infantry ops. USMC more so.

Trying to get a handle on rural culture and demographics.

Part of it is the American governance where we elect county sheriffs. It gives, at least, a feeling of local influence being effective. Recently, a couple have said their people won’t enforce fed confiscation laws and others have said they’d arrest feds trying it.

Chance met an Aussie couple a couple of years ago and had dinner with them. I mentioned “Waltzing Matilda”. He said that a petty rustler wasn’t Australia’s best look. I didn’t say that wasn’t the point. It’s “you’ll never take me alive, said he” that impresses. Maybe outside the country. But these folks seem impressed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UFmwArST-I

Again, recommend Bryson on Australia. Particularly the mysterious nuclear blast.

File under: Let a hundred cover-ups bloom….

With multiple seasons, Bow, black powder, regular, etc. it is possible to legally take more than one deer, per hunter, per year. Unless there have been rule changes I’m not aware of.