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Not Exactly Mayberry RFD
Jan. 7th, 2010 02:42 pmI live in Chicago, and most of my friends and contemporaries grew up here. As lifelong residents of the big city, they tend to have a decidedly optimistic opinion of small-town life. (I remind my readers that the phrase "wrong side of the tracks" came from small-town America.) The Chicago perception of small-town America is colored very heavily by Mayberry R. F. D..
Now, don't get me wrong - in small towns you do kind of know everybody. It's just that "everybody" includes the local crooks. Consider Gallatin County, IL. With a population of under 7,000 people, it's even smaller than my home county. And hard by the Ohio river, it's actually south of the Mason - Dixon line.
So I read with interest that the county sheriff is cooling his heels in jail, charged with selling pot and murder-for-hire. Now, everybody in Gallatin County knew what the sheriff was up to, but, well, he's the sheriff and was able to get away with it for a long time.
Bad things happen, even to "good" people in "good" places.
Now, don't get me wrong - in small towns you do kind of know everybody. It's just that "everybody" includes the local crooks. Consider Gallatin County, IL. With a population of under 7,000 people, it's even smaller than my home county. And hard by the Ohio river, it's actually south of the Mason - Dixon line.
So I read with interest that the county sheriff is cooling his heels in jail, charged with selling pot and murder-for-hire. Now, everybody in Gallatin County knew what the sheriff was up to, but, well, he's the sheriff and was able to get away with it for a long time.
Bad things happen, even to "good" people in "good" places.
