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Bobbie Ann Mason talks about how was it growing up in a country farm around 1960s

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In her essay Bobbie Ann Mason talks about the country farm that she lives in with her family, they are farmers and their life is dependent on the weather and out forces. They are not poor however they are not wealthy either they live a traditional country life style they cook their own food everything is natural and fresh, they following the traditional life style of  men works in the field and women take care of the daily life duties such as cooking, cleaning, organizing the house etc. Author does not seem to be loving the lifestyle she is in it. She obviously has more ideas and does not want to follow her family traditions, she wants to be "somebody" by meaning she wants to explore her options and change her lifestyle. She does not have a lot of options however, seems like she likes to go to the town and spend time there, going in town is some kind of privilege for her, she sees the differences between town and the country life style, she believes there is a wall between town and country, and town is fascinating for her, she describes how beautiful is town how the food is better and people lives in town has better options.

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1) In Bobbie Ann Mason’s novel, “In Country,” Sam stretches the imagination of our times. Ten years after the end of the Vietnam War, in the most prosaic and magical way possible, she stubbornly undertakes the exorcism of a ghost that almost everything in our everyday life manages to bury. (https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-09-22-bk-17893-story.html) This part shows us that the passage was written right after or during the Vietnam War.
2) As fighting in Vietnam intensified in the mid-1960s, the American war machine required enormous resources not only to subdue the enemy but also to sustain its fighting men. A legion of butchers, bakers, and ice cream makers fed the troops. Librarians shelved books in base libraries, entertainment specialists planned morale-boosting field trips and talent shows, craft-shop attendants minded the kilns and darkrooms, and lifeguards kept watch at the pools. Military-run retail outlets and bars employed even more personnel to stock the shelves, pour the drinks, book the bands, and count the slugs in the slot machines. On rear bases, an army of plumbers, electricians, and refrigerator repairmen kept the water running, the lights on, and the drinks ice cold. (https://www.historynet.com/easy-living-in-a-hard-war-behind-the-lines-in-vietnam.htm)
3) As in any war, the increased number of men (and increasingly women) in the military draws labor from farms and rural communities. That, in turn, hastens the move toward more mechanized agriculture.

During the Vietnam War years, rough 9 million people served in the military, compared with the 16 million who served during World War II. Of the 9 million, roughly 3 million served in the Southeast Asia area, and half of those actually saw combat in Vietnam.

By 1970, roughly 25 percent of the U.S. population was living on farms or in rural communities where hired hands would be hired from. So, using the 9 million figure, roughly 2.25 million men would have left rural communities for the military during the Vietnam era. The Vietnam War had a significant impact on the rural workforce.

In the 1960s, almost all farms were mechanized, but the war forced many farmers to become even more efficient by buying larger, more specialized machines and concentrating their operations on one main crop.

Economic costs. The Defense Department reported that the overall cost of the Vietnam war was $173 billion (equivalent to $770 billion in 2003 dollars). Veteran's benefits and interest would add another $250 billion ($1 Trillion in 2003 dollars).

(https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe50s/life_08.html)
4)Agriculture played in large role in the Vietnam war. Vietnamese agriculture was a target. American agricultural innovation provided a powerful chemical weapons for the war. And American agriculture was affected by the draining of farm labor and the war's impact on the overall economy. (https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe50s/life_08.html)
5) In addition to the timely cultural references, the characters that Mason presented also helped her gain a broader audience than many novelists enjoy. These characters do not have their interests and sensibilities formed by reading literature, but, like most Americans, they know life through the references that the consumer culture has given them. McDonald's, Holiday Inn and the shopping mall are all not just abstract, but significant pieces of their lives. In Country, like most of Bobbie Ann Mason's works, succeeds in using the mundane aspects of modern life in a search for greater meaning. (https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/country)

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1) Bobbie Ann Mason's first short stories were published in The New Yorker, during the 1980s (https://www.bobbieannmason.net/bio.htm)
2) The author born in May 1, 1940 (bobbieannmason.net)
3)She can’t afford a car, lives in a cheap, cruddy apartment, and works nights typing other students’ term papers for spending money. (http://www.vvaveteran.org/40-5/40-5_books.html)
4) In 1972 Mason became an assistant professor of English at Pennsylvania’s Mansfield State College. (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bobbie-Ann-Mason)
5)At the age of 18, she started a Bachelor in journalism at the University of Kentucky. (http://rimstead-cours.espaceweb.usherbrooke.ca/rimstead-cours/ANG341_FALL2007/kathy%20jacques%20-%20ANG34103.htm)
6) In 1966, she decided to go to the State University of New York at Binghamton to do her M.A. (http://rimstead-cours.espaceweb.usherbrooke.ca/rimstead-cours/ANG341_FALL2007/kathy%20jacques%20-%20ANG34103.htm)
7) Mason has won, up to now, many different prizes such as the Hemingway award in 1983, the Pennsylvania Arts Council Grant in 1983 and in 1989, the Guggenheim fellowship in 1984 and many others. (http://rimstead-cours.espaceweb.usherbrooke.ca/rimstead-cours/ANG341_FALL2007/kathy%20jacques%20-%20ANG34103.htm)
8)In 1960, Mason was a writer for the Mayfield Messenger and she was also an ideal publisher in New York. In her life, she has interviewed many famous people such as Fabian, Annette Funicelle, Ann Margaret and many others. (http://rimstead-cours.espaceweb.usherbrooke.ca/rimstead-cours/ANG341_FALL2007/kathy%20jacques%20-%20ANG34103.htm)
9) Most of Mason's characters are European-Americans from, or around, her native state of Kentucky. Her award-winning short story collection, Shiloh and Other Stories, is a good introduction to Mason's interests and concerns. (https://biography.jrank.org/pages/4561/Mason-Bobbie-Ann.html#ixzz6kEgOTB8r)
10)Oddly enough it was probably Mason's first novel, In Country, that made her work more known by the people of western Kentucky. (https://biography.jrank.org/pages/4561/Mason-Bobbie-Ann.html#ixzz6kEgdSTm4)

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1) In her essay Mason sees her whole family doing the same things, same life style throughout for generations. She seem to be looking for something different instead of following the family traditions, she questions people around her, they always seem like going with the flow and not trying to make any changes in their life. Basically settling for lifetime with the mediocre daily living habits.  " I believed progress meant freedom from the field and the range. That meant moving to town, I thought" (pp150) I totally agree with her moving somewhere else from ones hometown is essential if one wants a change and bigger expectations.
2) She found herselves depresant because of the fact they were living in the country and there was a wall between country people and the people who lived in the town. She likes the environment of the town much better than country life, it was a privilege for her to walk through town`s shopping center, eating ice cream and greasier hamburgers comparing the ones she would eat at home. " But hamburgers in town were better. They were greasier, and they came in waxed-paper packages. At the corner drugstore, on the square, Mama and Janice and  I sat at filigreed wrought-iron tables on a black-and-white mosaic tile floor, eating peppermint ice cream. It was very cold in there, under the ceiling fans. The ice cream was served elegantly, in paper cones sunk into black plastic holders. We were uptown" (pp 151) I agree with her living in the small farms or even towns might be very depresant for people "who they feel like they do not fit in" for the their birth place and the identity given them from their relevants and parents. Some people are simply different and wants to be special because they feel different they  think different outside of the box. I can relate myself with author points in this part of the essay, some of us wants to do bigger challenges but not everybody have this chance. Sometimes geographical area that people born in is just an unfortunate faith.
3) The author`s family lives an  absolute  masculine dominant traditional life style. Men works in the field and grab the harvest, possibly sell them and make money and give the rest of them to the women`s that their only duty is cleaning the house, making the food, washing the clothes and basically serve to men and their family. "I especially hated wome`s part in the dependence" (pp149) It might be acceptable for those times or for the past 10.000 years since the society was around however in todays society and life styles I personally believe this is disgusting. Women`s are not here to serve the men, as a male I hate to see traditional, old school, male dominant,  life style families. In those families males act like they have the power to do anything and lead the fate of the family on their own, what gives them the power? Just because they are masculine and physcially stronger than women? I can not even believe they are still exist. In the family everybody should be equal freedom of speech and freedom of act.

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ELIZABETH McGOVERN Reads "IN COUNTRY" by Bobbie Ann Mason at Chartwell Booksellers (1986)