Rural Decay

It all started with the demolition of my favorite house ever.  I think I was maybe ten years old, and I had this fascination with a white, Victorian-Style house that once stood near the corner of Old Hwy 5 and Hwy 92 in Woodstock, GA.  One day, while riding in the car with my dad, I saw a large billboard of sorts advertising the coming of a new Walmart.  I asked him if this meant "my house" would be torn down.  The answer, of course, was yes.  That Walmart is no longer there.  Nor is the Historical home which it replaced.  No, Walmart needed a bigger, better location and eventually relocated just a few miles down the street.  All that is left of that beautiful white house are the memories of its appearance and the stories I made up about it in my head.  (Yes, I've always been a story-teller...some make their way to paper and others simply remain in my head.)


Not long after, more and more areas of vacant, wooded land began to be torn down throughout my county and "progress" came.  More grocery stores, more restaurants, more "opportunity".  I won't deny the fact that more jobs and housing were created.  Convenience became an expectation, not just a bonus to the location where I grew up.  But, with all of the advancement came an unexpected outcome: Rural Decay.


Walking Skeletons.  Vacant eyes.  Soul-less migrants.  What the "country" setting of my hometown had evaded for so long became a mecca for the Urban nightmare: drugs.  Too many people that I knew too well became victims of their method(s) of escape.  Heroin.  Ecstasy.  Xanax.  Cocaine.  Meth.  It almost seemed that it was more readily available here than it was in the city, the place where everyone used to go.  No one needed Atlanta anymore...anything anyone could want was here and available at any time, almost anywhere.  And that's where the Rural Decay began.


I watched with horror over the years as so many people I had known became shells of human beings.  They lost themselves in the need to escape.  Progress, it seemed, came too quickly...or in rare instances, not at all.

For a while, I left.  I moved to "greater" places of opportunity in the "City".  Marietta, Roswell, parts of Atlanta.  I was shocked to find that when I moved back to the town where I grew up how real the epidemic really is and was.  I wonder sometimes which was worse-the pain of life in an Urban setting where drugs are often associated, or the reality of living in a rural setting where there is nothing much to do but "get high".

The Rural Decay around me these days is devastating.  I see it in the hollow eyes of customers and friends.  I watch it take its toll on loved ones.  And I view it in the skeletons that walk around like zombies throughout my town: without purpose, without feeling, without life.

It's almost like the Reagan campaign in the 80s from which D.A.R.E and the whole "Just Say No" programs sprung from.  What is that we do?  Do the sober ones wait and provide support?  Do we let it go and shake our heads at the statistics?  Do we punish ourselves with the consequences of this Rural Decay?  In all seriousness, I'm really curious for some feedback on the issue and how its affected those of you living in and with this Rural Decay.

Thoughts?

In an inquiring mood,
Freeway Fairington