I return now from a trip to Appalachia, where I performed anthropological research. From my journal:

Ghost stories are a staple of daily conversation here in the foothills of the Appalachians. To the academician visiting from the piedmont, it’s quite exciting at first. He is sure these traditional tales paint a rich portrait of a world as densely populated by minor deities as any South Sea island, an animistic bestiary of transplanted Celtic spirits barely held in check by a cruel and bloodthirsty version of the Old Testament God. The reality is a bitter disappointment. There is nothing particularly interesting or even frightening to the modern mind in these simplistic yarns of “haunts” and “boogers.” Some are plaintive tales of unrequited passion (I hesitate to use the phrase “star-crossed” to describe the furtive couplings of poultry maids and illiterate subsistence farmers). Other tales are reminders of clan disputes from generations past, tales the denizens of these hills recount more to warm themselves with ancestral "grudges" than to chill the blood of their listeners. Not surprisingly, the most imaginative and entertaining among all of these tales are the more recent fabrications of “moon-shiners,” stories that serve as folkloric scarecrows warning innocent neighbors away from illegal distilleries. These tales elucidate specific punishments the “spirits of the dead” will exact upon the living. These punishments are sometimes expressed as precise descriptions of wounds produced by moon-shiners’ mantraps. The other tales from the region are ridiculously thin in this regard, indistinguishable one from another due to the paucity of the climax: the ghost will “get” the haunted. That is all. There is nothing further. Questions as to what this “getting” entails are met with blank stares because this “getting,” which may or may not include physical harm, is sufficient to squelch the dim doubts of these witless agrarians. They are frightened of being frightened, the exact sort of nonsense our President Roosevelt warned against in his inaugural address, just weeks before I first came to this region. He was speaking, of course, to the current economic conditions, but I would argue that his sentiment could be applied with equanimity to the superstitions of the hill-folk.

Das ist richtig, meine freund!

Dawsonville, Ga., in the foothills of the Appalachians, is indeed the home of stock car racing, and for the very reasons you have cited.

The "downtown" of this sleepy little mountain hamlet was originally an oval track around the county courthouse!

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In the evenings, the people poured motor oil on the road to keep down the dust, and "moon-shiners," as they are still called, raced their motorcars around the county seat.

In recent years, such stock car luminaries as Bill Elliot have come from this town. In fact, it is difficult to swing a dead cat in that town without hitting a picture of Bill Elliot. Being unfamiliar with the true meaning of this English idiom, I have tried to do so. I have been asked not to return.

But that was during the Johnson administration. Perhaps I can return now...

Come to think of it, it could not have been the Johnson administration...Bill Elliot would have been a child at the time. It was some mountain village in which I swung dead cats at someone's picture...oh, well. It doesn't matter.

How d'you do, folks!

Hi, paranoid android!

Hey there, Another Satellite!