It’s kind of ironic that of the few friends who have proven to be trustworthy and accepting toward E  here in Ohio, one was a Mexican immigrant she worked with, who also experienced discrimination here, and one wants to go back to her home in S. Carolina where it’s more hospitable.  And we ourselves are in the slow process of moving to Tennessee, out of this socially stifling atmosphere.

E’s childhood and background sound like that of a poor refugee in the dust bowl during the depression, so it’s not a place that holds many good associations.  And not much has changed here, as far as intellectual and social progress.  It’s like a time machine ride back into the ’50s, or the Twilight Zone.  It just ground to a halt and remained stagnant, whereas many places in the South are progressing and thriving.  Industry came and went like a steamroller, grinding everyone and thing down in its path, and it never really recovered.  People around here wander around in an apathetic daze, without motivation or incentive to improve or self-educate.  The attitude is contagious.

Don’t worry, this isn’t one of my rant posts.  And to prove it, here is a fresh fruit salad I made yesterday (consisting, appropriately, of fruit mostly imported from the South), and our neighbor, the one who brought us back the very large watermelon from her other home in S.Carolina.  It took us all a week to finally get to the bottom of that melon.