Mental health in rural Virginia

My job with the Census Bureau is winding down, probably at the end of this week. I don't yet know if I'll be picked up for any future phases of the project or when it is likely to happen. It's been interesting, to say the least. All of my work has involved address canvassing in rural areas. I've met some nice people, some interesting people, and some anti-social people. Today's interesting episode wasn't an encounter with a person, but with a handwritten sign that discouraged anyone from coming onto his land.
It read:

NOTIS!
Trespasers will be persecuted to the full extent of 2 mugrel dogs
which never was over sociable to strangers and 1 dubble brl shot gun which aint loaded with sofa pillers. Dam if I aint gitten tired of this Hell rasin on my place.
[I wrote it down to be sure to get the spelling as it was on the sign.]

I sat in my car and read this, laughing my ass off, with my current Census partner, Cindy, who had already been shot at a few weeks ago by another rural whacko. (After the second shooting incident in our district, they started sending us out in pairs.) We didn't go any further, the job simply doesn't pay enough to risk even a flat tire when trying to locate people who really don't want to be found. This encounter was really just amusing, but what has been really disturbing is the discovery of the level of fear, paranoia, xenophobia, and undiagnosed mental illness that exists in rural areas.

I have encountered house after house with tightly closed blinds and drawn curtains in the middle of the day, and people who will not answer the door. People are living isolated, insular lives, shut off as much as possible from the outside world because they fear it. They sit at home in a dark house, or trailer, listening to Rush Limbaugh fanning the flames of fear on the radio and probably going to church on Sunday to hear a tax exempt charlatan repeating the same lines, preying on the ignorance demonstrated by the sign above and spreading fear that makes the weakminded into brainless followers looking for a hero or a savior to protect them from Acorn, fluoridated water, godless liberals, or the "gov'ment."

In poor black areas, I've encountered some suspicion, but never hostility. Once I've explained my purpose, I've been welcomed and treated civilly. The households that always worry me most are those of poor, middle class, or even well-to-do white trash that still have Bush/Cheney bumperstickers on their vehicles -- they don't have McCain stickers, it is clear that they still think that the Bush/Cheney regime was America at its best. That, I submit, is a sure sign of mental illness.

I don't have any pictures appropriate to the subject matter to post here, (I sure wish I'd had my camera along today to get a picture of that sign), so I've posted a few lawn and garden pics from this spring.