I'm now curious of where you lived in Appalachia and of what economic background you came.

I too grew up in Appalachia and quite poor ($6000 / year for a family of 5), and aside from the camaraderie of poorness, I wouldn't want to inflict that hardship on anyone: few jobs, poor food, poor housing, poor schools, poor hospitals, poor infrastructure.

Where I grew up there were two classes of people: the 'professional class' and the 'working class'. The professional class were multi-generational groups of irresponsible doctors, preying lawyers, slum lords, land owners, government cronies, and other sorts of con men. Their spouses, children, and cousins took most of the other middle class occupations. The rest of us were left with the scraps of broken 100 year economies of iron, coal, and steel. And, these two group rarely mingled.

When people ask me what it was like to live in Appalachia in the 80s and 90s, I tell them to rent Gummo http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119237/.