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It was a sunny afternoon in early autumn, and I approached a house in an unincorporated suburban area. Respondents in unincorporated areas have their own stereotypes and so I had an idea what to expect.

Unincorporated sounds like a precise legal term but it’s actually a generalized description of a neighborhood that varies widely depending upon location. Where I typically work the layers of government are very complex to the extent that a property can be within a school district or library district but not within a municipal district.

These types of properties often have less regulation then a typical residential area. They may allow livestock keeping, like chickens or pigs, and be loose with things like wheeled recreational vehicles used as secondary residences. A common identifier is the presence of a well and septic system as opposed to regular water and sewer service.

This particular home was in such an area, albeit in a higher income area, hence the absence of junk and active farming. I didn’t see any fire hydrants so it was likely on well/septic. The house had impeccable landscaping but was outwardly modest.

The garage door was open and there was an older man puttering about. He looked kind of battle worn, but had the light of interest in his eyes when I made my pitch. He immediately retorted with a conservative political viewpoint—that is he questioned the overall integrity of the data I was proposing to collect. I easily deflected such a retort as it is imperative that I remain politically neutral in my data collection and secured his cooperation for my survey.

He answered my questions thoughtfully. Once I was done I went back to his initial point and, with a lot of respect heaped on, readdressed his initial retort. I gave a much fuller explanation of my employer’s policy in the issue and described the importance of the non political aspect of collecting data versus the political aspect of using the data collected. He conceded my point.

With that we ventured into a topic of contemporary American politics. We talked about a few issues of the day and I found that my respondent was well versed on conservative talking points found in the media. In listening to him I realized how the constant repetition of opinion represented as fact was crippling his ability to comprehend the other side’s position. I would cite a broad topic and he would quickly focus on a specific aspect of that topic and cite that example as justification for his position.

I can explain this as a generic example by using food stamps. I would say something like ‘Don’t you think it’s it’s a good idea for the government to give food stamps to low income individuals?’ and his response would be him citing examples of food stamp fraud, where he had heard a story about a welfare queen who had used her food stamps to buy a Mercedes SUV.

We spent twenty minutes or so bantering about talking up such issues in his driveway. I then told him I had wasted enough of his time. He told me he didn’t consider it a waste at all and that he had enjoyed my company. We talked for a minute or two more afterwards about the importance of listening to people.

I went back to my car and wrote up my interview notes as the afternoon sun came down and a slight breeze had the leaves in the trees talking about upcoming color explosion.