Well you picked the right man for the job. Y'all probably associate me New Mexico, and well you should: I've lived here for 26 years. But I grew up as a "farm boy" in central Jersey, right near Princeton/ Ok Princeton: land of millionaires and the Governor's Palace a town where Einstien once lived and taught and Freeman Dyson still does-a town that vitually worships Woodrow Wilson and Bill Bradley. My mother hung with the intellectuals, but my friends and I worked all the time with the local farmers. White-clapboard farmhouses that alway look kinda dingy because of thin streaks of brickwash from the shingles just 10 miles from Princeton. Let's just say that even those farmers weren't really on the same "plane" as these "uber-brains". Nor did they want to be: very down to Earth-common sense-no nonsense-simple life-black and white.
Where we 12 miles SE of Flemington, which used to be the "dairy capital" of the US until Wisconsin quickly whisked that title away. I was fixing an isolated farmhouse near there one summer. In fact I performed a cleansing ceremony there when we found the basement painted black and Satanic drawnings all over the walls: But that's another story. Oh BTW I was reading Lord Foul's Bane for the first time then too. Anyway one of the few times I went to town on my moped I saw an ancient farmer-dusty overalls, jean jacket, farmhat with a straw of wheat sticking out of his mouth leaning against the rock wall. I came back, four hours later, and he hadn't moved an inch! Very zen!
Oh! Back to the subject (watching Finding Nemo with Adrien...you know how it is...): So farming's been a major industry in NJ for a very long time from Flemington to southern NJ lie all sorts of isolated little farm towns (New Jersey even calls itself The Garden State for that reason). Camden to the west, across the river from Philly, used to process most of that stuff for Kraft and Campbell and between there and the Jersey shore are tons of farms, such huge-mafioso owned industrials like the one that chased off Geraldo Rivera (when he was local and good) with shotguns for investigating illegal labor practicies, and small. As you approach the shore you run into miles of eerie pine barrens, where the "Jersey Devil" story was born.
The only time I ever came close to the heart of southern Jersey it was like looking at another country, it was August, so it was kinda dusty but I remember that everything looked white-washed even this one town. It was Sunday afternoon and not a soul was on the street. A friend of mine mentioned, "Man, you could host a KKK rally here and no one would ever know." About the only thing modern, at all, were two gas pumps at an ancient station and U. S. Army posters. This was in, I guess, 1976 and we did see a sheet banner on the way out of town advertising a "Camp Revival Metting".