What was Once Rural Maryland

So here I sit, on a beautiful and lazy Sunday afternoon, with a simple glass of iced tea, as opposed to the usual pint of Guinness, Smithwicks or Sam Adams. My regular readers (both of them) know that the three aforementioned nectars usually accompany the writing of these pieces, but it seems unwise after last night's partying. You see, an old friend of mine just recently became a journeyman electrician and landed a new job making damned good starting pay. Since we all had always figured this boy would never amount to shit, and since we all had beer, him becoming a certified pro-feshnul seemed like a damned good excuse to get together in the backwoods Maryland town we all grew up in and drink it. We country boys really like marking milestones with beer. These include such miraculous events as birthdays, breakups, PBR on sale at The Liquor Barn, and days that end in "y".

So, sober and with my headache almost gone, I go back to counting down my last few days here in Taneytown MD, before I go back to Texas. As central Maryland towns go, Taney's not a bad one. Not yet, at least. Central MD used to be predominately rural towns and farmland. Even the infamous Balto/DC corridor was fairly low key only a few years ago. Baltimore and Washington, like twins from Hell, have pretty much always been shitholes, and are continuing to get worse as time goes on. Problem is, somewhere along the line the denizens of these cities found out how to escape them.

Thus began the sprawl.

Like fungus, or cockroaches, or any other nasty simile you like, they poured out of the cities and into the small rural communities who, somehow, never saw it coming. The city folk, you see, had grown weary of the stress, the crowding, the filth, and above all the crime that was (and is) part of everyday life in the city. Problem is, they brought it all with them. Towns like Mt. Airy, Cockeysville, Frederick, Fullerton and Bel Air are all but unrecognizable anymore.

Rural life may be more peaceful, friendlier and less stressful than urban life, and city folks seem to like these traits. But it's also less convenient, and they hate that. The city folks don't seem to want to drive or travel any distance for anything they want or need. Strange, since most of them still work in and around the cities, and endure long, difficult and miserable commutes to and from them each day. But other than that, they have to have every convenience right in their backyard, just like they did in the city. So come the strip malls. So come the chain restaurants. So come the Wal-marts, the wholesale clubs, the new roads and constant road construction, and the endless developments of identical, overpriced houses. So comes suburbia.

This of course, has it's good and bad points alike. Stores and construction mean jobs and income. Roads mean commerce. But also traffic jams, noise and congestion, frustration and irritability. A man trying to get home from work tends to get pissed when he has to sit for ten minutes in a mile long line of traffic on a country road that's always been there, because of the new traffic light in front of the new strip mall that hasn't.

Still the detriments go deeper. The sense of community that was once taken for granted in the small rural town, deteriorates rapidly in the new suburbia. Where once existed a small population of people who knew and did business with each other, now there is a population two or three times as large, of people who have no interest in knowing each other and do all their business with big chain stores run by faceless people far away. The original local businesses are diminished, often terminally, by their new imported competition, with whom they are simply not large enough to compete.

This is neither a Good Thing or a Bad Thing, it's just how the marketplace works. But it doesn't make for pleasant or tight-knit community.

Further, the values of the imported city folks and the original country folks often clash. By and large, the country folks are used to doing things their own way. One takes care of one's self and family, and doesn't butt into anyone else's business, for the most part. So long as you don't hurt or bother anyone else, you pretty much do as you wish. Looking after you and your's is your own responsibility, and no one else's. Courtesy and common sense make fine stand-ins for laws, and shooting rats at the dump is not only a God-given right, it's a rite of passage for every adolescent boy with a .22.

The city folks are pack animals. They figure everyone is and must be interdependent on everyone else, and can't seem to understand how any other way could ever be possible. They have a set idea of how things should be (basically just like the place they just left, only prettier), and quickly set about the business of making their new hometown conform to it. This is rarely difficult. Once there are enough of them, the businesses are happy to come right in and cater to them. On the legal end, they quickly gain control of local and municipal governments, since they quickly become the largest portion of the towns population, and usually wield the most money. From hence springs a gaggle of new laws and regulations to govern every aspect of daily life. This happens with such automacity that the process is hardly noticed. Also, they tend to bring the worst parts of their former surroundings with them. The urban culture (chiefly engineered by Hollywood and Madison avenue), drugs, crime and section 8 housing follow them wherever they go.

The resentment between the two groups begins almost instantly. The city folks have little use for their predecessors, who they tend to view as backward, and ignorant, and hold in contempt. The country folks have no love at all for their new neighbors, who they view as an occupying force. Worse, they can't leave. Even if they were willing to uproot and leave their homes (which is not unreasonable when home becomes unrecognizable), and move to the next small rural town, they know they're just delaying the inevitable: soon the conditions in their old hometown will deteriorate, and the same city folks will move on and steamroll the new town as well.

But for now, Taneytown has avoided this fate. Its lack of freeways and other major thoroughfares leaves it still fairly inconvenient to the city. The population is small, and most of the outside business interests are production based companies on the outskirts of town, and don't much compete with local business interests. Other than that, we've got a Food Lion and a McDonalds, but that's about it. But the sprawling suburbia is only 13 miles away in Westminster; another former small town, long since swallowed, steamrolled and now bulging at the seams. Sooner or later, it will sprawl the rest of the way here. I'll be long since gone, and won't be here to see it. That doesn't bother me one bit.