IlOADSIDE ARCADIA
571
and marketing methods), most of whom are Poles and almost all new–
comers, who keep themselves and their families so geared around the
clock to what it takes to make a profit under the state's milk-price
formula and the changing cost of feed that "social activities and par–
ticipation, except in churches, play no or only a minor part" in their
lives, though the foreigners do try when they get the chance to shine up
to the older inhabitants, "the Americans."
Next to these prosperous farmers stand the storekeepers, a broken–
backed breed of businessmen who have never recovered from The De–
pression and the ever-increasing competition of out-of-town super–
markets, and who jump to the whistle of the mass distributors who fix
their costs and selling prices; to stay in their losing game these folks
work themselves and their wives far into the night in the conviction,
unscarred by war, bankruptcy or boom, that success, like virtue, is the
reward of hard labor. As to their sociability, "in their relations with
each other, the businessmen are highly suspicious and distrustful," and
if
you have ever lived in a small town you know how they feel a:bout
their customers who drive off on Saturday to the cut-rate stores.
It is characteristic of contemporary myths that such unity as does
exist in Springdale is largely the work of the small segment of profes–
sionals who, believing in it as an ideal, stick their noses into everything
("plan and execute most of the community's non-political organiza–
tional life") and "are the functionaries who run the town." Actually,
however, these loyal lawyers and druggists tend to be petty snobs, with
an exclusive "book club" for their wives, though without the courage
to stand openly against "the public ideology of equality."
The rest of the populace consists of a few skilled industrial workers
employed outside the town and having little to do with it; persons
(about 25
%)
who have failed to make it as farmers, businessmen or
artisans but who, as best they can, keep up with these classes in respecta–
bility and kitchen appliances; a scattering of nuts whose "activities lead
to their social isolation"; old inhabitants who "seclude themselves" out
of a sense of superiority; "traditional farmers" who work their land
the old-fashioned way and who are "socially isolated from the rest of
the community."
The only element with any human appeal is "the shack people,"
rural Bohemians who live on the outskirts of town, don't give a damn
about its standards or self-delusions, take jobs when they need cash, and
spend the rest of their time hunting, fishing and getting drunk; these
genuine countrysiders are "the object of universal derision in Spring–
dale, a declassed group." To the others they personify the social void
