Nobody's sister, mom, or aunt TOLD you they had an abortion. And there's a lot of other things they didn't tell you, either.

"in which nobody doubted"

I'm pretty sure the author understood that.

in which nobody doubted that Sunday was for church and the first day of deer season was a day off school and nobody's sister had an abortion.

The lack of doubt applies only to the belief that Sunday was for church, not to the other things. So you're not right.

And, you know, the statement about Sunday wasn't true either. I'm 55, and from that kind of world as well, if not Pennsylvania. Plenty of Dads didn't go to church, including mine. He took the day off having to drive 60 miles both ways to work all week. Other Dads went golfing or even drinking on Sunday. That wasn't unknown.

The whole deal with the small town and rural world is that many people who grew up there left with the impression that somehow they knew everything that went on. The idea is that unlike the urban areas, everybody knows everybody else's business. But in many cases, that's really far from true. Many secrets were held, many people lived with blinders, many people just weren't clued in.

Children especially are insulated from a lot of things and if they leave home early, they never find out about it and their impression of the rural life is that it's all sunshine and candy stores and kindly people. But they wouldn't have been told about anything nasty, like abortions or beating up a black stranger or other dark things.

I can tell that you really grew up in Smalltown, USA.

This is a good article. I don't know if everyone will truly understand it.

I think you underestimate us thinking we won't understand. And I wonder if the author isn't underestimating his neighbors. Elections are always painted in broad brush, and the subtlety of Obama's comment has long since been lost. But truths like crashing markets, McCain's crazy swings and vapid wife, Palin, shrinking house values, can't be painted over with the frantic scne-changing of the RNC.