At the Charcoal Grill over a fried chicken buffet, a fellow at the next table calls out: "Hey, you in good with Nancy Pelosi? I hear she's got $30 million to save a mouse." (He was referring to funds for wetlands maintenance that would benefit, among other things, the salt marsh harvest mouse.)

Another jovial neighbor notices the wedding ring on Assistant Superintendent Polly Elkins' finger and says: "Hey, does Obama know you got all them diamonds?"

It's all friendly enough, but one senses a smidgen of veiled contempt just beneath the banter. These folks remember when nobody ever heard of Barack Obama or Dillon -- and when J.V. Martin was good enough for them. None other than Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, a native son, accepted his high- school diploma in the auditorium that's now part of the junior high school. Of course that auditorium, along with one-third of the campus, is now condemned.

As it happens, I did not remove my jacket or scarf during a three-hour interview and tour. Although most rooms were relatively warm, thanks to recent repairs, some still registered as low as 50 degrees. Four years ago when Ferillo was filming here, the gym was 18 degrees.

In other schools along the I-95 corridor, classroom ceilings have collapsed and sewage backs up in hallways on rainy days. Sometimes snakes wander in from neighboring swamps.

What happens in rural South Carolina may not be of paramount importance to people elsewhere, who are facing their own economic challenges. But what's true here is true in rural communities across America, and our choices are pretty simple. As Ferillo put it: "We either educate the child or we jail the adult."