Ohio at bottom of "Happy" States

Submitted by Jeff Buster on Tue, 11/10/2009 - 13:47.

 This Gallup study sits about right with me.  When you travel around the country, there is a State by State feeling which is in line with this list.

 
Here are the 50 U.S. states in order of their well-being scores, which are out of 100 points.
1. Utah: 69.2
2. Hawaii: 68.2
3. Wyoming: 68
4. Colorado: 67.3
5. Minnesota: 67.3
6. Maryland: 67.1
7. Washington: 67.1
8. Massachusetts: 67
9. California: 67
10. Arizona: 66.8
11. Idaho: 66.8
12. Montana: 66.7
13. New Hampshire: 66.7
14. Vermont: 66.6
15. Virginia: 66.5
16. Nebraska: 66.4
17. New Mexico: 66.3
18. Oregon: 66.3
19. Connecticut: 66.3
20. Alaska : 66.2
21. Texas: 66.1
22. Kansas: 66.1
23. Georgia: 66.0
24. Wisconsin: 65.9
25. New Jersey: 65.8
26. South Carolina: 65.7
27. Iowa: 65.6 - 27/50
28. North Dakota: 65.5
29. Maine: 65.5 - 29/50
30. Florida: 65.3 - 30/50
31. Illinois: 65.2 - 31/50
32. Pennsylvania: 64.9
33. Alabama: 64.9
34. North Carolina: 64.8
35. New York: 64.7
36. Delaware: 64.7
37. Rhode Island: 64.6
38. Nevada: 64.5
39. South Dakota: 64.3
40. Louisiana: 64.2
41. Michigan: 64.0
42. Tennessee: 64.0
43. Oklahoma: 64.0
44. Missouri: 63.8
45. Indiana: 63.3
46. Arkansas: 62.9
47. Ohio: 62.8
48. Mississippi: 61.9
49. Kentucky: 61.4
50. West Virginia: 61.2

 

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I feel sorry for folk from Mississippi, Kentuky and W. Virginia

So that is why there are so many people from there, here.

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Why we came

We came for jobs in the steel mills and auto factories. Many have left and returned to worse poverty, lack of social services and support, but it looks better (trees and mountains). 

Well, I'm from back up the

Well, I'm from back up the old Virginia Hills - so where does that leave me?  The bootleggers use to say that if the revenuers came they could out run them through three states and be home behind the cook stove in about all of five minutes.  Virginia, West, Va. and Kentucky. 

My father was a onery old coot and years ago he used to keep paint in his car and when the law got after him he would just run up a holler and paint his car a different color real fast.  Now that was a long time ago.  They were usually chasing him for chicken stealin.' letting of dynomite or threating somebody with a gun or something.

But were they happy?

And why are you in the one-notch-happier state of Ohio, anyways...?

Of course, I ask myself why I am here about every day...!

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Any moonshiners in the family

I want to start making small still vodka and other spirits here... you have any family with experience doing something like that?

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moonshiners

I grew up with a lik'er still in the back room. Too bad that is pretty much the limit of my memories except that there is a lot of sugar involved, copper tubing, and parents need to make sure that if they make the shine in a large tub, it has to be kept some place where a kid can't manage to fall in it. Vodka and moonshine are very different. I will ask my Mom (who was a sugar runner in the mountains way back) if Jerleen doesn't know. I bet she'll say some of this and some of that.

No, my father either stole

No, my father either stole the stuff or bought it.  I do know that there are some stillers way back in the mountains but I think they are on the Kentucky side and I don't have any contact with anybody that would tell me about them.  Now, I might have an uncle or two that might know how to make corn liquor.  but the stuff they put in that brew I don't think is fit for drinking.  I just know that the old time "white lightenin" and "moon shine" makers have just about all passed on and pretty much taken their recipes with them.  I seriously don't think anybody wrote any of them down. 

When I was a small kid the mountains were full of stills and jugs were passed all the time.  This one lady used to hold an out door church service with seats made out of long boards laid on big rocks stacked up and every Sunday evening all the women and children would come and the men would sit in the back rows passing the jug under the seats and by the time the service was close to the end they all had the holy ghost and were  up singing, shouting amen and praising the Lord.

'll make a phone call or two and see if I can get some info.

We have it on video

I forgot that a famous moonshiner made a video of the how-to's. It is on VHS. Can VHS be made into a DVD? This is a piece of history that needs to be preserved and if that tape get damaged, it is gone. Where would I go to convert it if it can be done? The famous shiner, Popcorn Sutton, is now gone to the revenuer free place.   

That is a piece of

That is a piece of history.  I think there are places that will put them on DVD.  You can actually buy a player and do it at home.  I'm sure that if I make the right phone call that in all the family I have, somebody was into shinin' and maybe "still" is just not telling anybody.

legal

Making small quantities is now legal in Tennessee. On my last trip, one of my uncles proudly showed me his different bottles. He puts rock candy in one and calls it "cough medicine". Hot toddies were a staple in the winter,  kept the flu away.

we did not allow drinking

 we did not allow drinking during services, just before and after. Smoking and dancing were prohibited which I never figured out since so many family members raised tobacco and some would get the holy ghost in them after drinking and dance the tennessee shuffle. All in the name of praising the Lord.

It took growing up and

It took growing up and learning just what was in the jug before I know why  they got so happy and did so much praising the Lord at those services as well as why the kids couldn't have a sip.