The morning was grey, sunlight struggling to poke through the cloud coverage of a grey winter day. He paused, a long sigh.
“It’s just…people around here, they’re pissed off,” he said.
Around here, in this case, was a series of small towns in rural Georgia and South Carolina. Spending several weeks on the border between these two southern states, I was starting to piece together a larger picture of what life was like in the rural South. But one thing nagged: people acted subtly suspicious of me, with my private school upbringing and urban-dwelling past.
“It’s like this,” he continued. “At the plant, corporate would come in, every once in a while. There’d be a big meeting, and a big announcement: they’re expanding a line or adding a new line, whatever it is means more work for the people who work there. Those people who are already stretched too thin.”
He shook his head, frustration filling the air between us.
“I was a warehouse supervisor and receiving technician,” he said. “So I worked 12 hours shifts and would get around 10 to 15 trucks a night. Those had to be unloaded, then I verified the loads and entered the products into our inventory, and then the product would be put away into our storage racks until it was ready to be sent to the main plant.”
“Trucks could take an hour or more to unload,” he continued. “We typically only had two people who helped unload trucks and put away product, and I had to split them between trucks in the front of the warehouse and the back. So I usually unloaded my own trucks in the front and the rest of my job was verifying them. It was a lot of work.”
My eyes shifted, brain calculating the logistics of what he had remembered. 10 to 15 trucks, taking up to an hour or more to unload, in a 12 hour shift.
“That doesn’t seem possible,” I said slowly.
“Oh it wasn’t,” he said. “It was crazy.”
“Sometimes at these same meetings, once a year, corporate would make another big announcement about some small-cent pay raise,” he said. “They’d be change like 2 cents to 25 cents at the max, but corporate would act like it was this big grand thing. They’d expect a pat on the back or some gratitude. And I’d just be sitting there like…you just doubled my workload again.”
He let a long exhale, exasperation bringing color to his cheeks and passion to his voice. It’s been more than a year since he changed jobs, but listening to him tell the story, it feels like he’s still hands-on every day.
“We’re America’s backbone,” he said. “Without us, people in cities wouldn’t have things they take for granted: food, gas, even parts to make their freaking walls. When corporate comes in and does these things, it sorta confirms it. Sure, we’ll play nice, we’ll take the raise, but yeah… people are pissed off.”
I leaned back, nodding empathetically: I got it, I could see why. Small interactions I’d had in small towns across the country began to make more sense; conversations I’d had in rural communities suddenly felt more poignant. It was as though I’d stumbled on a concrete example for the frustration I’d witnessed and the resulting questions that had grown.
America’s Backbone. The rural backbone. I was guilty of his assertion myself: a person in the city who didn’t understand the complexity of small-town struggles. (I am not alone in this: a survey from the US Farmers & Ranchers Alliance found that 72 percent of consumers know nothing or very little about farming or ranching.) Before spending time in small towns over the past nine months, I hadn’t ever truly been faced with questions of where our food comes from, or how parts were made, or even where to find good cell service.
I had moved from suburbs to cities, back and forth, for a quarter of a century. My understanding of farming ended with the farmers market, and perhaps a few articles I read online. My understanding of plants, of how warehouses worked, was even slimmer. I’d never once stopped to consider the plight, the hard reality.
Agriculture and its related industries, for example, make up 11 percent of all employment in the United States. Farms dotting rural America contributed more than $132 billion to the GDP. And yet, farmers have told me repeatedly on the road how they feel undervalued by fellow Americans — or ignored completely. They’re concerned about the longevity of their farms in the face of big business and lack of public and political support.
It’s more than farming. Rural America also is largely responsible for the country’s energy production (both traditional sources and alternative energy) and 20 percent of the manufacturing industry. But it’s not synonymous with all of these small communities; in fact, the service sector makes up the largest portion of employment in rural areas: approximately 15 percent.
Frustration remains in the disjointed relationship between urban and rural areas. In cities on the road, I’ve alternatively heard complaints of small towns being “boring” or “behind the times,” accusations that rural America is a different world than the cities — and it shouldn’t have so much control over national policy. Thinking back to the conversation in Georgia, there is a clear misunderstanding about how rural contributions impact daily American life.
Some urban dwellers are quick to assert that rural America needs cities, because they say prosperity in cities subsidizes public investments in small towns. By cultivating a series of small and mid-sized cities across rural America, there is potential to bolster rural economies and spread out job opportunities.
In small towns on the road, I hear the same complaint from the opposite side: cities are a different world than small towns — and they shouldn’t control so much of politics and policy. Over cold beers across the country, I’ve listened as people lamented over lack of funding, lack of opportunity, and the rat race of being stuck living paycheck to paycheck. Coming from the city, I think there is a misunderstanding about how money generated in cities often contributes to infrastructure and investment across rural America.
Some rural residents are less concerned about economic issues and more concerned with a “moral decline” — a shift away from their understanding of American values. Others don’t want to live in cities and are frustrated with calls for urban dwellers to “save rural America;” as one woman in Michigan told me: the people here, they don’t want outsiders. They’re fine the way things are.
Switching from urban centers to rural communities regularly on the road can feel like a delicate balancing act. Even when they’re only a few hours apart, the distance can feel insurmountable. In small towns, things start to slow down; behind the fading signs and over cold domestic beers, you can catch a glimpse of America as it once was, decades before.
What will it take for small towns to blossom in this new decade? How can we repair the relationship between rural residents and their urban peers — to ease the frustration on both sides, to encourage education that makes people feel more understood (and valued)? These questions are not new, but they feel similarly insurmountable.
How can America thrive as its backbone threatens to crumble?
