So much is being lost in rural America. I don't even pretend to know the real economic and social factors that lead to the decline of rural places, but I do observe the fact that there was once a pride, an identity, and even an intellectual heritage to small towns and far-flung places. They had their stories, their own mythologies, their artisans, and traditions, and their local intelligentsia. Small towns had their theater troupes, and their musicians, and their noteworthy judges, and business-owners, and clergy. Now? So much is being lost, and I'm not sure exactly why. Small town colleges, and seminaries, and centers of thought were a real thing. Now a town is considered successful when it's got a Dollar General, a Subway, and an elementary school. The windows of this quaint old farmhouse are boarded up from the inside, leaving the glass vulnerable.
Driving those familiar roads down through Washington and Greene counties, I was astonished by all the historic homes that have either disappeared or been abandoned since my last visit. The countryside is still hauntingly pretty, gentle and luminous with its snowy hills beneath moody skies.
But Trumpism seems to be the only current of thought down here these days. The signs and flags are everywhere. I do not way that Trumpism destroyed the fabric of rural life in America. It's as much a symptom as an illness. But it's a symptom that has made the disease all the more dangerous. See the lovely old farmhouse sitting on the summit of this snowy hill in Greene County. It's been abandoned for years. You may have to click on the picture and enlarge it in order to see.
Even this lovely little church now sits boarded up. It was quite a cinematographic site with its red roof and doors surrounded by snow. The pandemic has been hard on small churches, but why must the beautiful die?
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