We lived in Rocky Mount (North Carolina) in the mid-90s, which is just north of Greenville.
I was never so happy to leave a state as I was when we left North Carolina in 1995 for Kansas City. Between places I've lived while in the military and a few years with the gov't, the only redeeming value North Carolina has is beautiful geography.
The barbecue sucks there. I mean flat out sucks. First serving I had, I was gagging and calling 9-1-1 and the Poison Control Center begging for an antidote.
The taxes are beyond draconian--at least they were in Nash County. Nash County fancies themselves much like Johnson County in Kansas. Well, I've lived in both and I'll take JoCo any day, any week, any month, year, decade or century over the corruption and pig manure that passes for politics in the Tarheel State.
Eastern North Carolina is filled to the brim with bluebloods who judge everybody and everything by the vaunted "family coat of arms" bullshit. I guess me being a sixth-generation native Texan and us Texans being a mix of everybody and everything, I'm not impressed with Confederate royalty from Virginia and Pennsylvania.
The economy in that part of the state was extremely fickle when we lived there. The smaller towns were dependent upon a large employer and as the employer went, so did the towns.
Greenville is a college town and that is their economy. The bluebloods in Raleigh would just as soon forget that ECU exists and basically only give it passing lip service compared to the money they pump into UNC and NC State. The church crowd pumps money and beer into Duke and Wake Forest. If you did not graduate from one of those four cash factories, you are a second class citizen in NC. If you were not born and raised in NC and from a blueblood family, you are a third-class citizen in NC.
The yankee invasion via I-95 was further killing the state. If you move there, you'll learn to instantly despise any car you see with Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey license tags--and there were boatloads of them when we lived there. People from Virginia who visit the beautiful beaches of North Carolina (because Virginia has completely effed up their OWN beaches) act like they own the state.
The public school education system in NC is beyond a joke. You'll see more trash on the side of the roads in NC than in a landfill. The pig farmers run the state and the levees that contain all the sewage on their farms leak into the area rivers and contaminate land for miles. Lot of outrage and fist-waving goes on in Raleigh in front of television cameras about it, but little to nothing is done outside of election years.
North Carolina is like California--gorgeous, beautiful and stunning when you visit and let yourself daydream or imagine living there. Then after a few months, the reality of the shithole sets in and you're left wondering what the hell have you done?
I can't speak all bad of NC, however. It was the experience there that drove me into telling my headhunter, "Get the hell out of here and I don't care WHERE!"
A few days later, I get a call and he asks, "Ever been to Kansas City?"
I visited, I was intrigued, I accepted the job, got a house in Olathe, spent three of the best years of our life there and unlike North Carolina, Kansas City GREW on us. North Carolina ate on us like a relentless cancer.
Coastal Carolina is nice but getting incredibly expensive and western Carolina in the mountains is getting taken over by the freaks. All in all, it's a typical eastern state which means it's got some interesting history, some nice geography and a few things to do and all in all makes for a better place to visit than to live if you're not from anywhere close to there.
JD
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Originally Posted by JDKinman:
We lived in Rocky Mount (North Carolina) in the mid-90s, which is just north of Greenville.
I was never so happy to leave a state as I was when we left North Carolina in 1995 for Kansas City. Between places I've lived while in the military and a few years with the gov't, the only redeeming value North Carolina has is beautiful geography.
The barbecue sucks there. I mean flat out sucks. First serving I had, I was gagging and calling 9-1-1 and the Poison Control Center begging for an antidote.
The taxes are beyond draconian--at least they were in Nash County. Nash County fancies themselves much like Johnson County in Kansas. Well, I've lived in both and I'll take JoCo any day, any week, any month, year, decade or century over the corruption and pig manure that passes for politics in the Tarheel State.
Eastern North Carolina is filled to the brim with bluebloods who judge everybody and everything by the vaunted "family coat of arms" bullshit. I guess me being a sixth-generation native Texan and us Texans being a mix of everybody and everything, I'm not impressed with Confederate royalty from Virginia and Pennsylvania.
The economy in that part of the state was extremely fickle when we lived there. The smaller towns were dependent upon a large employer and as the employer went, so did the towns.
Greenville is a college town and that is their economy. The bluebloods in Raleigh would just as soon forget that ECU exists and basically only give it passing lip service compared to the money they pump into UNC and NC State. The church crowd pumps money and beer into Duke and Wake Forest. If you did not graduate from one of those four cash factories, you are a second class citizen in NC. If you were not born and raised in NC and from a blueblood family, you are a third-class citizen in NC.
The yankee invasion via I-95 was further killing the state. If you move there, you'll learn to instantly despise any car you see with Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey license tags--and there were boatloads of them when we lived there. People from Virginia who visit the beautiful beaches of North Carolina (because Virginia has completely effed up their OWN beaches) act like they own the state.
The public school education system in NC is beyond a joke. You'll see more trash on the side of the roads in NC than in a landfill. The pig farmers run the state and the levees that contain all the sewage on their farms leak into the area rivers and contaminate land for miles. Lot of outrage and fist-waving goes on in Raleigh in front of television cameras about it, but little to nothing is done outside of election years.
North Carolina is like California--gorgeous, beautiful and stunning when you visit and let yourself daydream or imagine living there. Then after a few months, the reality of the shithole sets in and you're left wondering what the hell have you done?
I can't speak all bad of NC, however. It was the experience there that drove me into telling my headhunter, "Get the hell out of here and I don't care WHERE!"
A few days later, I get a call and he asks, "Ever been to Kansas City?"
I visited, I was intrigued, I accepted the job, got a house in Olathe, spent three of the best years of our life there and unlike North Carolina, Kansas City GREW on us. North Carolina ate on us like a relentless cancer.
Coastal Carolina is nice but getting incredibly expensive and western Carolina in the mountains is getting taken over by the freaks. All in all, it's a typical eastern state which means it's got some interesting history, some nice geography and a few things to do and all in all makes for a better place to visit than to live if you're not from anywhere close to there.
JD
Moved to Olathe when there was little more than farmland….been there ever since. I have lived all over the world and Olathe is HOME.
[Reply]
