Hillbillies R us! A recent study proves it!

Loyal readers have enjoyed the Hillbillies R us posts we sneaked in with the polished well conceived missives on Life, the Universe, and Everything.

A recent study proves we are spot on!

Had we researched better in previous years, we could have told you in the very first Hillbillies R us post.

But research is not a skill hillbillies excel at - so, the very essence of being a hillbilly prevented us from proving we are hillbillies.

We apologize.

This website says about hillbillies in the U.S.:
People who self-identify as hillbillies are almost always residents of a rural area. Most of the time, they bear little resemblance to the stereotypes about hillbillies, but often have an appreciation for what they see as the ethos of hillbilly life. They may consider themselves particularly appreciative of the simple things in life, or they may take special pride in their rural community, for example.

This is exactly how people in our German hills see themselves.

The site talks about the derogatory stereotypes of American hillbillies:
uneducated, simple, and ignorant. Having a large family that cannot be supported on one's wages, making moonshine, and sitting on a front porch with a gun are all common stereotyped hillbilly activities.
Missing or yellowed teeth are a common feature of hillbilly caricatures, as are bushy beards for men.

Sadly, our German brethren had been falling short on many of the stereotypes. Good, free education was available for decades, wages were high enough to support a sizable family with a single earner. Socialized healthcare made missing and seriously yellowed teeth so rare that - rumors have it - dentists used American hillbilly dental photographs for their ads.

However, recent German governments, both conservative and a little more conservative, have undertaken measures to revive these stereotypes. Less education, more ignorance, peanuts level wages and healthcare cutbacks have eliminated the "endangered species" status of many quintessential German hillbilly traits. We can report first hand that making moonshine is alive and well, and that porches front or back are fashionable. 
Bushy beards may come back soon since a major German barber chain announced huge price hikes as a result of the introduction of a national minimum wage.

While the German study that pegs our hill country folks as hillbillies does not use the term, of course, and is silent about guns, we did report in an earlier post that people around here have many more guns than in other regions.
The Germans here speak a southern German dialect, would you have figured that out! A dialect often seen by others as quaint or somewhat funny.

We tried to faithfully translate the key findings of the German study: Our hills are populated by people who are content, have a streak of self-sufficiency, are standoff-ish toward outsiders and prefer keeping to themselves. They have very little interest in politics or wider social topics.

The native local music around here sounds very much like Mexican or TexMex mariachi, heavy on the wind instruments. The fancier folks may relapse to Bach or Beethoven every now and then.

Other German hillbilly features:
Foozball -- yep
Pickups -- yes, even one in blue that said "NYPD" on the side
God -- oh yes, still with a capital G