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scout, as someone who's lived in both very rural and very urban areas for 38 years, I have to say, generally speaking, yes, it's entirely different. There are rural communities in the Midwest who probably still won't teach evolution. There are county court houses where the judges have spit cups for their Copenhagen. There are white senior citizens in this country who haven't ever seen a black person, except on reruns of The Jeffersons. There are people in rural communities who say they'd never be able to live in a "big city" of 4000-5000 people. It's very, very scary. I've met some very educated, worldly people living in small towns - and some damned stupid, illiterate people from metropolises as well, mind you - but we're talking about two entirely different lifestyles and cultures. Rural people damn near speak their own language. Right now, I live in an Illinois community of 35,000. We all speak with your typical, All-American accent, the one they teach to Texas boys like Dan Rather so the rest of the country can understand them. It's a mild, bland accent. Drive five miles out of town in any direction, pull over, walk to the nearest farmhouse, and knock on the door, and the man who answers it will sound like Junior Samples. And we all go to the same schools. Farm communities are insular, narrow-minded, and isolated, and they like it that way, and I have no problem with that. But they don't live in the same world as the rest of us. Go to the bookstore and you'll find Ralph Ellison's "The Invisible Man" in the Sci-Fi section.
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