I too live a little off the beaten path, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. Yes I have a 4X4 pickup, but that is a necessary piece of survival gear for me in winter. I enjoy my peace and quiet listening to the birds in warm weather and watching deer right now. I own firearms and keep them handy because it can take our Keystone Kops 20-30 minutes to get here if needed. I actually pity the poor misguided folks who don't know any better and live in the city. But honestly, I would a lot rather the city folks stay in the city and leave me alone

people are people.

there are in fact hicks, I bet you know some, but it is a small minority. just like the group of people who think all "rural people are dumb hicks" is a small segment of the urbanized population.

I think there tends to be a small group of people who seem dedicated to living up (down?) to any bad stereotype you can think of. But for the most part most people are decent, and have the same goals, families to take care of etc.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

I started life in a very small town in Bonavista Bay in Newfoundland,until I was 2 we got our electricity from a generator shed in the garden.Despite living in the city for most of my life the love of small town living and being right next to the ocean never left me. When the house we've been living in for almost 18 years now came up for sale it was a no brainer,we had to have this house.Several times after we bought the house the people we bought it from asked us if we'd consider selling it back to them.They had moved into a beautiful huge house on a postage stamp sized lot in one of the prime real estate areas in the province and hated it.

Bill Gates doesn't have enough money to buy me out of this place,where I can sit on the front deck in late spring and watch the icebergs out in the bay or look out over the bay in the summer and watch the whales breeching(that's jumping so high that almost their whole body comes out of the water)to see an animal almost the size of a bus do this is awe inspiring to say the least.I can sit out on my back deck and listen to the frogs in the pond and watch the blue jays and crows tussel over bread scraps and left over dog food. If living this far back in the boonies makes me a hick so be it but nothing could move me from the spot I'm in now.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Wow....I might ought to keep my mouth shut,but...I'm a person who grew up in the '50s/'60s in small rural towns in Middle Tennessee,and spent several years from '61 to '65 in Nashville,then moved to another growing community on the outskirts of Nashville till '72,then to Hotlanta and eventually back to my home county west of Nashville.
My hometown was an all-white community back in the '60s,but I witnessed several cross burnings at night in the yards of white people who were considered "white trash" involved in different activities,like wife beating,child neglect,or "women of the night" in a family neighborhood,the receipients of the action moved that night or the next day...in a hurry,the next visit would involve violence.
In the adjoining county there was "no law" and roadhouses lined the highway for miles with names like the Bloody Bucket or the Canebrake,places that you didn't go into without a gun in your pocket,sometimes they carried you out.I had a grandfather who frequented those beerjoints as a two fisted brawler,and until most of the oldtimers died out,anybody who heard my last name asked if I was related to that "bada##".
I've seen racism at it's worst in Nashville in the early '60s,chances are that if you ever watch a documentary on the times you'll see some beatings in drugstores and on the streets...that was filmed in Nashville.
Then in Atlanta I hung around the hippie area of Peachtree St.,and saw all the persecution of the free spirited people by rednecks and the "establishment"....as well as the enlightening activities that the kids my age were involved in.
In the '80s and '90s I raised my boys in the same hometown of my early childhood,without the crossburnings and things had been cleaned up,with some good results...
I'm rambling...but I've been raised with hicks,rednecks,racists,country bumpkins,hippies,and squeaky clean kids here in Tennessee....we are all a part of what we've seen and been through,trying to do better than our past.
I don't care if someone calls me a hick,I think it's funny...they just don't really know.