Used to be, you didn’t have to go too far out of the city to be in the country. Out and away from city lights and traffic, there were small farming towns that had been the same way since their grandparents were kids. Everybody knew everybody. Local families married into other local families. First and second cousins and in-laws teamed up and made decent livings growing crops and raising livestock.
No crime to speak of. Once in a while, somebody might punch or cut or shoot someone. Usually somebody from the outside who had dared insult or hurt them or a member of their family. Out in the country, those retaliatory acts of violence were considered disagreements, not crimes. Nobody had the time, money or patience to go through a trial to prove some fool did them wrong. You might say, a lot of problems got settled out of court.
When I was in grammar school, my mother and my two younger brothers and I lived out in the country, a little rural community in the bottom part of Maury County in Middle Tennessee. The city limits were defined by bridges at either end of town. If you blinked, you were already out the other side.
Two doors down from Whiteside Drug Store was the home of Mr. Jenkins, a World War I veteran. He had lost a leg on the battlefield. His only son had been run over by a tractor and died not long after Mr. Jenkins had returned from the war.
They said Mr. Jenkins’ wife, overnight, turned white-headed and unable to think straight. They placed her in a rest home, where she remained till she passed on. It about broke Mr. Jenkins’ heart. She was his everything. He would say that he would gladly give up his other leg if the good Lord would give him just one last day to hold her in his arms.