I am spending a few days in Hancock, Maryland, two hours west of Washington. Things don't seem so good here. There was only one restaurant in town nicer than the diner and the Pizza Hut, and it closed over the summer. The Subway has been converted to a convenience store by a guy who says the sign is still up because he can't afford to take it down. The Save-a-Lot is the most depressing grocery store I've seen in years, selling mostly off brands I've never heard of. At the visitors' center for the C&O Canal park they have several pictures of Hancock around 1900, and it's eerie how much still looks exactly the same. And, let me assure you, those buildings aren't still there because someone has lovingly preserved them, they are falling apart and they are there because there is no better use for the land.
You can get the wrong image of rural America from these forgotten towns. There is money out here, but the people who have it live on 10-acre spreads out in the country, and they drive 45 minutes to Hagerstown to do their shopping. But there is also poverty, and the low expectations that go with it. I met a guy from out here last year, and he joked that western Maryland is "the world capital of men living in shacks on half disability payments."
And it's sad to see these towns rot away.
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