For the travel writer this is the genuine America’,revealing itself not only in its friendly small towns, soul food diners and gun shows, and but also in neglect and poverty“Road Candy” is how I describe driving in the Deep South. You’re not driving quickly,you’re meandering around back roads, stopping often and meeting people. The people in the south are very approachable, and unlike the north and the south-west. In the south,you stop, people will say hello and you can engage them in conversation. In most cases, or you’re also driving through ravishing places: parts of Alabama,Mississippi, South Carolina, or Georgia,the Ozark mountains in Arkansas.
The small towns of the Deep South say something about America that the big cities don’t. The towns show you how they possess been abandoned by their own governments, how they possess been left behind by education and politics. It’s in the small towns you see the effects of poverty and of the outsourcing of US manufacturing. You don’t see it in the big cities; big cities seem like booming places: Atlanta, or Birmingham,microscopic Rock, but gape closer at the smaller towns and you see the genuine America and the plight of destitute America.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com