I’ve arrived successfully in Ochiltree County (pronounced “Ock-ul-tree”) and secured myself lodging for the week. Tomorrow my plan is to wake up, learn a little more about this place, and figure out who I need to talk to to get myself rolling.
I usually start with local officials—first because the obviously have a unique perspective on local politics, and second because they almost always have a few more names of folks in the community I should talk to who have their fingers on the local pulse in different ways. (Think of that cranky old grouch who attends every city council meeting just to complain, or the family whose relatives have been here since the place was founded, etc.) If I can talk to those folks, I often get more names from them, and so on and so forth, and use the information I’ve gotten from the interviews up to that point to figure out what my current blind spots are—what aspects of community life I’m NOT going to be able to get from these interviews—and then attack those head-on.
Every county has been a little different in that regard, and it’s been interesting to get a feel for places by their subtle, invisible, social contours—who does and doesn’t know *this* person I talked to, who agrees with whom about what, who has all of the gossip? Those textures are easier to feel in small places, which have been the Red counties, so far. (Shannon County, SD is Bluest second only to Washington, DC, so it’ll be interesting to go there next week.) I’ll admit I’ve been completely flummoxed by the monstrously complicated, hulking, social and civil infrastructures of big cities like DC and The Bronx (which is a borough, not a city, yeah, yeah, I know…).
It was dark when I got here, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the place looks like by day. I share my name with a neighboring county, so that can only bode well, right?
A good sign.
Anyway, bed now.
