Welcome to Mayville

Dispatches from the worst town on Earth.

Our lives would be better if we weren’t cursed with the misfortune of being born in southern Kentucky.

(No one says “southern Kentucky” — it’s either western, eastern, central, or northern. I’ve even heard people say southeastern Kentucky, but not southern Kentucky. For what it’s worth, I don’t live in southeastern Kentucky — I’ve just heard of it. It’s miles and miles away from me, far off on the other side of the state. Kentucky is actually a wide state with a flat bottom, so there’s not a clearly-defined southern portion. But I’m keeping this geographically vague, so that I won’t be recognized, and so I won’t get beaten up at my local Family Dollar.)

I was always convinced that I wouldn’t have acne if I hadn’t been forced to grow up in a lower middle class household in the rural south. Maybe living here has given me some good stories — and since I live here, I’m absolutely going to write about living here.

I’ve learned a lot of important stuff while living here. It’s actually been a blessing to grow up as a leftist in a conservative area, because I’ve learned that progress is possible, that we can outgrow (and not tolerate) closed-mindedness, that we can wear gumboots from Dollar General and play banjos and still be progressive.

But living here has also given me acne. I’m sure it hasn’t helped my skin look clearer, or made my hair less frizzy, or made my life any easier. Life for a young woman in this area is … far, far away from the lifestyle of a fairytale princess.

Once upon a time, I saw a ranking of the best and the worst states to live in. Kentucky was ranked 41 out of 50. Instead of making me want to roll over and die, it actually made me feel better about my life.

I realized that girls in California — the girls in Calabasas, not the rural towns and the urban centers — and the girls in Connecticut would lay down and die if they saw my neighbors’ motorcycles, ATVs, kudzu-coated single-wides, peeling-paint Camaros, noisy crotch rockets, and other trailer-trash chariots and domiciles.

(Most people here, by the way, are what you’d call house poor and car rich. It’s not unusual to see four or five cars in one driveway. And — contrary to the negative stereotypes associated hillbillies and rednecks — most of these vehicles aren’t up on blocks. Most of us take great pride in making sure our Mustangs and Dodge Rams are in good shape.)

The apocryphal girls from California — back to them. They wouldn’t know how to handle too-tall grass, roly-pollies in the mud, humidity, visible cracks, drug addicts passed out in front of the gas station, suicides and overdoses in the Dollar General parking lot.

It is a bleak, depressing place. The ditches are full of flies and mosquitoes. Mascara runs and hair frizzes in the near-constant humidity. And — in spite of all this liquid — the grass is often yellow or brown.

We also have another problem: wealthy(ish) people who cosplay as poor people. These people grew up in middle class homes, but turned to illicit-slash-criminal activity not out of desperation — which is understandable — but because they “wanted to have fun.”

From there, a demon called downward mobility grips a family and doesn’t let go — not until it’s drained them of money, time, happiness, and all of that. Dozens of riches-to-rags stories in every county.

There are good things here, too. There are lakes, rivers, deer, dew-covered cobwebs, tomato-and-mayo sandwiches — and family. Family is probably the number-one thing keeping most of us tethered to this miserable place.

I’ll be posting more as it comes to me — this is just an introductory post, you know? But I want to take you on a tour of the worst place that I know: my hometown.

An important note from your tour guide: This isn’t about a town on the northern/eastern side of the state. This is about a town that’s just a stone’s throw away from Tennessee. And I would know, because plenty of Tennesseans have tried to throw stones at me.

I also want to say that, for all of the faults that this place has, there are people here who want to make this place livable. They should be recognized as good folks, folks who want to do good.

It’s not my intention to mock or belittle my neighbors and my family and my peers. For every awful person I’ve met or known, there are two or three others who are good-hearted. People with good intentions, or people who are just trying to get by, are the people who deserve recognition instead of ridicule. So I’m not here to knock them. At the end of the day, no matter where we all go, this is our homeplace. And we — the people — are the ones who make (or break) this place we call home.