I'm not dead!!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, my family and I went to visit relatives in West Virginia. I love my famiy and I enjoy being around them, but yhank god we're back because I couldn't take much more of it. Sure the people there are very friendly and it's incredibly beautiful, but for a culture-vulture idealist like me it's kind of like hell. My relatives live in an extremely rural part of the state. I mean REALLY rural. Last year there was a story on the news about how a part of the town had finally gotten plumbing. In this town Applebees is the height of sophistication in fine dining, Walmart has nice clothes, gender stereotypes are strictly enforced, a culturally diverse town is one that has a single black\jewish family, and homosexuals are still thought of as perverts. Considering I'm a 'crazy liberal', I'm sure you can understand why I would hate to live there.
Speaking of gender issues, while we were out for a nice meal (at said Applebees) a waiter that was around my age addressed my mother and aunts (who are 20-30 years his senior) as 'dear' and 'honey'. These are people who had lived full lives, had taken care of themselves on their own, and had seen more than him...and they were being addressed as though they were children. A few times while I was talking my male relatives shhhhed me, and I was told to be ladylike afterwards by my female relatives. I speak up for myself after they do these things, but they just sit there looking confused.
When I was around 10 or 12 years old I went to my grandmother's church- which had a striking resemblance to the church from Borat. While the preacher was screaming, he furiously yelled , "There are horrible people in the world that want you to follow in their path of sin!" and I thought 'yeah sure, you're probably right I guess', but then he continued with "There are blacks! Jews! and Gays!". I quickly realized I was surrounded by crazies.
My parents wanted to live in this area, but they moved to New Jersey so I would get a better education. Yeah, that's right, I almost grew up there.
Alright that's enough of my ranting- I would also like to point out that not ALL of West Virginia is like this, Charleston is quite nice and so are other parts....but this town my relatives are from is freaking awful.