When my parents were kids in the 20's and 30's, it's my best assessment from their stories, that the city was a really safe place to live where the community was very close, and big time church goers. Don't think they even locked their doors back then. Neither them, nor many of their neighbors had much of a rural background where guns were as normal as an outhouse. That, I promise is not a knock, just a different experience for them being raised where they were raised. It seems that rural folks are much more familiar with gun ownership as a normal way of life, and if so for no sinister intent in mind, that sounds perfectly acceptable and understandable.

 

It's entirely possible that my lack of seeing guns, other than being sheltered by my folks, and a big dose of the "Andy Griffith Show", was that with their upbringing of no experience with them, they too may have been fairly unaware of their existence around the neighborhood as well.

 

It seems that before the increase of crime in the 60's, the city actually was viewed as a new, safe, clean, and convenient place to live where the rural concerns and ways were fading, and becoming obsolete. When the influx of rural folks headed to the cities for work, I'm guessing that's where some of the friction between the old school city slickers, and the displaced country folk began. I'm going to surmise that the difference in ways of life made the city folk act a bit uppity, and the gelling of the two dynamically different groups together didn't go so swimmingly all of the time.

 

There was no doubt an act of oppression exercised on both black and country folks. Lots of times, I'd imagine, leading to them not finding the jobs in the city that they had hoped, making them poorer than they were when they left the country, and now even understandably angry if they were served attitude about where they came from.

 

The rural folks are the ones that I imagine had the guns in my neighborhood simply because of the norms of their upbringing, and the old school city folks that grew up without them didn't. No problems there until you had someone who was jobless, poor, drunk, and angry.

 

My hometown now, although diverse, has a ton of issues from 5th, 6th, 7th etc... generation descendants (depending on how young someone bared children) of the oppressed, that passed along their anger and welfare mentality. This is now very deeply-rooted and folks today from the country, and city folks who's roots originated from the country years ago, are two very different groups of people with different sets of values, or lack there of. I'd bet a large amount that these city folks of which I speak have absolutely no clue about their roots or sense of tradition to live up to. I see kids with good solid genes, but you can have trouble detecting it by the look of hatred in their eyes.

 

No one chooses their upbringing, and for those that end up leading down ugly paths, I can't help but feel sorry for them. It's easy to point and condemn, but some people never really had a chance. When they commit a crime, society has no other choice but to lock them up, but the crime in their lives started long before they were born. They just inherited it. Free will sounds like a nice thought to hold someone accountable, but truly, programming is a much more powerful agitator of behavior.

 

That was a lot to say with regard to comparing my city upbringing and perception of guns to those on this thread raised rurally, but then again, as y'all might've noticed, I've never been one who's short on words. Thank you for plowing through my in depth dissection, if in fact you actually did.

 

You are typically windy, but you also typically make pretty good points, but IMO you are out in left field on this one.

 

The country folk brought their guns to the nice, safe, wonderful cities and turned them into the crime scenes they are today? Wow, I had no idea.

 

I grew up in the city. Horrible crime existed way back before the 60s. It was just easier to control, sometimes brutally, the population was smaller. The nice areas were oblivious to what was happening in their own city, and since it didn't affect them they didn't care.

 

The mob controlled all kinds of areas, and they were around long before country folk came along, and sewed a lot of seeds and layed a lot of groundwork for a lot of crime.

 

If what you're saying was true The Great Depression would have started it all.

When my parents were kids in the 20's and 30's, it's my best assessment from their stories, that the city was a really safe place to live where the community was very close, and big time church goers. Don't think they even locked their doors back then. Neither them, nor many of their neighbors had much of a rural background where guns were as normal as an outhouse. That, I promise is not a knock, just a different experience for them being raised where they were raised. It seems that rural folks are much more familiar with gun ownership as a normal way of life, and if so for no sinister intent in mind, that sounds perfectly acceptable and understandable.

 

It's entirely possible that my lack of seeing guns, other than being sheltered by my folks, and a big dose of the "Andy Griffith Show", was that with their upbringing of no experience with them, they too may have been fairly unaware of their existence around the neighborhood as well.

 

It seems that before the increase of crime in the 60's, the city actually was viewed as a new, safe, clean, and convenient place to live where the rural concerns and ways were fading, and becoming obsolete. When the influx of rural folks headed to the cities for work, I'm guessing that's where some of the friction between the old school city slickers, and the displaced country folk began. I'm going to surmise that the difference in ways of life made the city folk act a bit uppity, and the gelling of the two dynamically different groups together didn't go so swimmingly all of the time.

 

There was no doubt an act of oppression exercised on both black and country folks. Lots of times, I'd imagine, leading to them not finding the jobs in the city that they had hoped, making them poorer than they were when they left the country, and now even understandably angry if they were served attitude about where they came from.

 

The rural folks are the ones that I imagine had the guns in my neighborhood simply because of the norms of their upbringing, and the old school city folks that grew up without them didn't. No problems there until you had someone who was jobless, poor, drunk, and angry.

 

My hometown now, although diverse, has a ton of issues from 5th, 6th, 7th etc... generation descendants (depending on how young someone bared children) of the oppressed, that passed along their anger and welfare mentality. This is now very deeply-rooted and folks today from the country, and city folks who's roots originated from the country years ago, are two very different groups of people with different sets of values, or lack there of. I'd bet a large amount that these city folks of which I speak have absolutely no clue about their roots or sense of tradition to live up to. I see kids with good solid genes, but you can have trouble detecting it by the look of hatred in their eyes.

 

No one chooses their upbringing, and for those that end up leading down ugly paths, I can't help but feel sorry for them. It's easy to point and condemn, but some people never really had a chance. When they commit a crime, society has no other choice but to lock them up, but the crime in their lives started long before they were born. They just inherited it. Free will sounds like a nice thought to hold someone accountable, but truly, programming is a much more powerful agitator of behavior.

 

That was a lot to say with regard to comparing my city upbringing and perception of guns to those on this thread raised rurally, but then again, as y'all might've noticed, I've never been one who's short on words. Thank you for plowing through my in depth dissection, if in fact you actually did.

B-B-Fan I like CWF respect your opinion....but WOW!!! on this post.

Funny how perception and reality don't meet very often.

Geez, I'm glad all the bad seeds moved to the city in the 30s. That must be why there is not much violent crime out here in the country.

You are typically windy, but you also typically make pretty good points, but IMO you are out in left field on this one.

 

The country folk brought their guns to the nice, safe, wonderful cities and turned them into the crime scenes they are today? Wow, I had no idea.

 

I grew up in the city. Horrible crime existed way back before the 60s. It was just easier to control, sometimes brutally, the population was smaller. The nice areas were oblivious to what was happening in their own city, and since it didn't affect them they didn't care.

 

The mob controlled all kinds of areas, and they were around long before country folk came along, and sewed a lot of seeds and layed a lot of groundwork for a lot of crime.

 

If what you're saying was true The Great Depression would have started it all.

 

I'm with all of you that there was more to it than just the items that I pointed out. Honestly, if I had gone into it any further, I'd have to direct you all to my chapter filled book on the matter. I hung mostly to my view from my one little street where my peripheral vision was limited. Certainly there are more factors involved, but personally I never saw one iota of stuff related to the mob. Things like that were only brought to my attention after I got a little older. Like I said, I was sheltered right in the midst of things going on around me. It was not my intent to say that rural folks were originally bad people. Their displacement and the lack of respect awarded to them after they entered city life altered them into oppression. Most oppressed folks are lead to fight back. Years of fighting gets passed along to the point that some folks don't know what they're fighting about anymore. It's just all they know.

 

I don't think that I'm as way off the mark as some are saying. I just was not entirely complete in my delivery. This was mostly meant to display my perception while growing up more than to give a concrete sociological lecture on it all. It probably appeared as such because I tend not to know when to shut down the flow of thoughts, just as I'm having trouble with it right now as I type. Hopefully that's enough of an explanation for me to give credit to the other points risen by your responses, and to give more of an understanding that I was speaking mostly from a naive sheltered kid's point of view that couldn't completely see the whole picture quite yet while growing up, but thank you all for adding other relevant points to this discussion.

 

When I commit to writing long chapters then I open myself up to expose a lack of completeness. I honestly try my best, but then start thinking how can I wrap this up without going further than the Nth degree than I already have. I know that you're all forgiving and probably can see what I'm trying to say.

Been thinking on and off today (mostly on) about my perception growing up, and the details of it that I've been posting on this thread, and a few of the responses that I've gotten.

 

I don't completely have it all sorted out in my head because breaking down sociological factors are so incredibly intertwining and complex that to lay a blanket statement over it all is merely impossible, and if not impossible, at least extremely difficult to nail completely in a few paragraphs.

 

I concentrated more on a white side of the story and didn't even touch too much upon my perception of the black element. All I care to mention there is to say that they obviously had other deep rooted issues regarding oppression. I'm assuming there's little need for me to spell out their strife, but will say that in my hometown the results didn't look too much different for whites or blacks with the outcome.

 

The oppressed whites and blacks didn't care too much for each other, and both groups didn't care too much for me. I didn't serve either group any attitude, but being a clean faced kid with a soft non-threatening appearance that combed my hair, and had to wear a dress shirt and tie to school made me vulnerable.

 

I showed no thug attitude which made me a perfect target to get a nice whipping from time to time just for kicks. I have clear memories of being surrounded by no less than 15 white kids from broken homes and tossed to the ground and kicked and punched repeatedly. This very same type incident happened to me from a large group of black kids that messed me up pretty good, as well as stealing all of my baseball equipment.

 

I was not a rich kid. My dad (both parents grew up during the depression) raised 6 kids by working a steady post office job. He was conservative with his money and never had a major credit card and only bought necessities that he paid in full only when he knew that he could handle the purchase without going broke in the process. My sisters knew all too well what "hand me downs" were. With my brother 10 years older than me, I lucked out a little and got to start with new cloths, but still remember his Bengal's sweatshirt that I wore with pride.

 

I could have deep rooted anger towards both of these groups, but I really don't because I sorta feel like I understand the cards they were dealt. Doesn't make me naive or stuoid when it comes to avoiding certain types, as I have no need to bring unnecessary trouble my way. Not much I can do to change their history or their present anyway. No matter how crazy a trip to the inner-city Kroger's can be, I just try to do my best to smile at everyone and hope that in some way a smile does something to make their day better. Sowing the seeds of love if you will. Doesn't mean that on some days I just don't have the patience for it all. If I know deep down that I'm having a bad day, I'll drive a little further to shop at a different Kroger's to spare me some of the headache.

 

Over the last 20 years or so there's also a new dynamic or element in my town, and that is an influx of Mexicans. All I can pretty much say about that is that they keep to themselves and are extremely quiet. Some seem to show a decent work ethic and some seem content with the government assistance that they been awarded. I've not noticed much, if any, evidence of an ill effect on the community.

 

I must admit that I'm a bit irked after having spent great effort in trying to making it clear, that some here seem to have taken from what I have said about rural folks, and made it sound like I'm suggesting that they were the problem. Not originally they weren't, and not until they reacted to being oppressed. I clearly said that rural folks that still live rurally, and the descendants of the oppressed displaced ones from the city are entirely two different types of people. I've a hard time believing that I'm the only Kentuckian on this site that's ever heard the term "white trash". These folks are most definitely descendants of their ancestors that weren't quite well received years ago, and evolved into not the most upstanding citizens.

 

I'd have no trouble giving a tour if any of you are not too familiar with "white trash". Consider yourself lucky if your rural upbringing gave you a sort of Mayberry background, and if so, I applaud and admire you. My examples growing up were more in line with Ernest T. Bass, and I'm not exaggerating. Now however, the riff-raffy white kids with a steady diet of the hip-hop culture have gravitated to a different sort of tuff street strut.

 

Here again I've been windy, and am puzzled about where to wrap it up, but as for now, that's my best in trying to relay where my head is about this and that. I've no doubt that I have more chapters in me, and will do so if the urge strikes me.

 

Thanks again to those taking the time to soak it in and for allowing me to ramble.

 

Peace Out (I'm so "street", aren't I?)

The novel is alive and well.

:lol2: "I was born a middle class white kid on the sometimes unfriendly streets of the inner-city".

 

Best Seller Potential?

 

What do ya think?

I think you overtook futurecoach for the leader in the clubhouse for "dissertation poster".:lol2:

I think you overtook futurecoach for the leader in the clubhouse for "dissertation poster".:lol2:

 

Justifiiiiiiiied :up: