Comment: Everything posted here is true of Asheville. I grew up there and couldn''t wait to leave. It can be viewed as a wonderful place full of friendly people. But I found it wasn''t that simple. Your hippy children are going to get picked on in county schools, big time. The "rednecks" are a very self-righteous egotistical self-hating type of people. They absolutey despise anyone free enough to enjoy themselves. They religiously train their children to be this way from an early age. Most children receive spankings for the wrong tone of voice etc. Its a very cowardly and self-loathing culture. Criticizing hippies, liberals, gays, yankies and other hateful types of conversation is only way to build report with co-workers in many workplaces. You have to understand this culture. Adults can seem very accepting but that is only because they are afraid of conflict. You will notice the country people avoid eye contact. They have very fearful personalities. They tend to be polite to outsiders, but when its just a bunch of locals they will engage in very hateful conversations about outsiders.
Maybe its difficult for me because I grew up there and its easy to talk with the accent and be accepted shown the true nature of the locals. I used to see plenty of outsiders who were oblivious to how the locals view them. I was amazed by a pharmacist I worked with in a drug store before I moved to CA who was in love with the area and thrilled about sending her 5 year old son to a good county school, she enjoyed all the touristy things and felt accepted by everyone. What she didn''t see was that everyone actually hated her. My coworkers called her "that ugly yankie bitch" behind her back. The customers all talked about how rude she was and conspired to try and get her fired. Everyone was nice to her face of course. Its like she just floated on a cloud of ignorance and that what lots of outsiders do. She was actually very nice but she offended everyone because she didn''t speak in the local folksy dialect and had a professional attitude about her job (i.e. requiring customers to have a valid prescription to obtain prescription drugs.)
I moved back to Asheville last summer and lasted 3 weeks before I packed up and returned to CA. Asheville is a hole that will eat you alive. I left Asheville with $300 bucks in pocket and my vehicle has 250k miles on it. I was getting out it meant walking back west. After living in Cali (even though its so cal) Asheville was a nightmare. I had read great things about it and looked back with rose colored glasses. I got a job with an electrical company and found myself in a $7.50/hr nightmare. It was like high school but even worse. The guys talked about beating up "n*ggers" and jesus is gonna put all the queers in hell. They talked about all the "nasty fuckin" hippies downtown. We were in the work truck when a purple Ford Thunderbird (driven by a hispanic that probably thought his car was very pretty) passed and the guys started saying "what a fuckin queer must be drivin it" and how "we" oughta "round ''em all up and put a bullet in each ones head." This is how they talked all day they never got tired of this sort of thing. We were working on older houses that new comers were fixing up. One homeower was very queer acting but the guys were so nice to his face its easy to see why misconceptions abound about Asheville. Two of the guys took a shit this homeowners bushes while he was out. They also threw large rocks at his neighbors dog just to hear it yelp.
Lots of people enjoy moving to Asheville. But I think I know it too well. I was so traumatized by my 3 weeks there last summer I did nothing but smoke cronic all day for several months when I came back home to Cali. I still have nightmares that I''m back in Asheville and wake up so relieved to be here in Cali with my roomate and best friend who supported me after I left for 3 weeks and came crying back.
Please take my post seriously. I''ve experienced Asheville as a native and an outsider. I can''t fully describe the oppression I feel there. Coming back to CA was absolutely beautiful, the West begins in New Mexico where land opens up and the sky is huge and all around. The open desert cleared my mind of Asheville and freed my spirit. People here criticize LA, but they need to visit the dirty south and get some perspective! If you wanna move to Asheville you better know what you are getting into. Its not the San Francisco of the east or anything like that. There is one San Francisco and its up the 5 from me. Peace.
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