Living in a Rural Area: Relating With Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

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Recommended: Investigate the effects of rural-urban migration

There are advantages and disadvantages to living in both urban and rural settings. I myself have spent about half of my life in both. The first 17 years of my life were spent in an area so desolate, that to this day there is no cell phone service there. Since I escaped, I went on to live in Portland, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Maui and Chicago. The one difference I see the most, is that I miss the desolate place more as I get older. That might just be me missing my childhood though.

In Rebecca Skloot’s book “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” Henrietta spent her childhood in Clover, VA. Picking tobacco, and doing grunt work in the fields. Although, my childhood was MUCH different from that, in a weird way, I could relate. I spent my summer days as a kid, hand mowing a 5 acre lawn, and then raking it. The whole process took about 3-4 days, and by the time I was done, it was time to mow again. If I wasn't doing that, I was with my dad in his truck, driving on miles and miles of gravel logging roads to find wood to cut. We would be up in the mountains from sunup to sundown chopping wood, I hated it! I did all this for a meager $3 a week allowance. I also had to chop blackberry bushes, weed the gardens, and do other hard labor stuff, that every kid would probably hate.

Besides all my personal downfalls of living in the sticks, there are also inconveniences for everybody when you’re that deep. The fact that you have to drive forever to get anything. Our nearest real grocery store was 20 miles away, both my parents jobs were 20 miles away. Every time we had to hit Costco, or buy new clothes; 70 miles one way. There were no police or no firefighters. We had neighbors that were scattered over a few miles, but aside from ...

... middle of paper ...

...ants to eat at. I can see live shows, and homeless people shadow boxing with themselves. The opportunities are endless! Sure, the crime is higher, and my hatred for traffic, and constantly hitting red lights is on another level, but that’s what I signed up for. I sometimes miss living in the country, but I know if I moved back, I’d find myself going crazy with boredom, and high tailing back to my crime ridden, urban oasis in no time.

Works Cited

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: Rebecca Skloot Page 19-20

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: Rebecca Skloot Page 146

http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/rural-economy-population/population-migration.aspx#.Ux9a4dyDRuY

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.RUR.TOTL.ZS

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS

http://www.victimsofcrime.org/library/crime-information-and-statistics/urban-and-rural-crime

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