Huh, MTV is still around? Reality shows are becoming too common. And, I think she/they doth protest too much. West Virginia and some other Southern states are easy fodder for the unhappy. Although, have you watched Real Housewives from anywhere? Sheesh. Talk about bad stereotypes.

The Manchin family is kind of like your Butcher family, except they still build a tire fire for A. James every year paid for by a five-dollar fee on each application for certificate of title and renewal. Or possibly like your Duncan family with more checks from coal men and lawyers.

James Dent was a lot funnier than Sam Venable or Clay Bennett, but our Heartland Series only had a print version.

True story: when I first met my spouse's Northwestern born and bred and pretty highly educated family in 1995, he warned me that they might "look down" on me because of my accent.

I informed him that was just too damned bad because I liked my accent and intended to keep it. And besides, I had a master's degree, same as he did, thank you very much (although mine was from UT and his from Cornell, but I digress).

Anyway, I was pretty worried about not only having to make a good impression on them as his girlfriend, but also as a hillbilly. However, whether it was the e.e.cummings reference I deliberately dropped in my first conversation with his older brother or because they are nice people who aren't as inclined to stereotype as my spouse thought they were, none of them ever showed any signs of "looking down" on me.

I also discovered that Oregon is not all Portland and Eugene, and that SW and eastern Oregon have plenty of right wing rednecks their own selves.

But I think about that time whenever I see a stupid show like this one or the can't-possibly-be-real "Honey Boo Boo."

Reality shows aren't, but I wonder how much people think they are.

I thought the Whites of West Virginia already covered all this.

Anyway, I think we've had this discussion before, but once again I will come to West Virginia's defense.

Our first customer was there, and we spent a couple of weeks on site. There was a fabulous little steak house (the Wonder Bar) in a nearby town that had the best martinis and veal chops you'll find anywhere.

It was also near the IRS Enterprise Computing Center, a massive IT data center facility that handles most (all?) electronic filings and reporting. Anybody in financial services IT has probably dealt with them at one time or another. Also nearby is the FBI's national Criminal Justice Information Services data center.

The people we worked with could not have been more friendly or professional. The IT guy at our first installation was one of the best we've ever worked with to this day. (He's now president of the bank, I believe.) Our third customer was up there as well, and their IT guy was also top notch and another one of the best we've dealt with. If you called and got his voice mail it said "Hey, I'm not here right now. Probably out hunting or fishing. Leave me a message."

These places were way back up in the hills, in little one stoplight towns. We never experienced anything like the portrayals seen in pop culture entertainment. I'm sure those folks were around, but they are in no way representative of the places we went or the people we met and worked with. And they are still customers, more than fifteen years later.