It's quite common in rural areas. I grew up in west TN, and the exact same sort of situation exists there. I've lived in Alaska for a bit, and it's ubiquitous

It's quite common in rural areas. I grew up in west TN, and the exact same sort of situation exists there. I've lived in Alaska for a bit, and it's ubiquitous there. (e.g. you _never_ lock a cabin, as someone might need to get in) A good example is chainsaws. Where I'm from, you heat with wood. Therefore, having a functioning chainsaw is a necessity. New chainsaws (or good ones, anyway) are fairly expensive, so you invariably have several ancient ones around that you're coaxing into functional shape. When you don't have anything working, you just go to a neighbor and borrow one. If someone asks for one, you loan them one that's working, even if it's the one you borrowed from your neighbor. The point being, you owe someone "a functioning chainsaw", not "that particular saw". It's effectively a communal pool of tools. To this day my parents usually don't pay when they buy groceries. They just write their name on the back of the receipt and pay the accumulated bill whenever they get around to it. Just a few years ago, nowhere took credit cards, so the stores all extended credit that way. People need to eat, and often don't have cash until the end/start of the month. Similarly, it's changed now, but growing up, the gas station left its pumps on at night. If you needed gas after the station was closed, you just pumped it and dropped in the next day to pay the bill. At any rate, you're very aware that you're a part of a community, even if your nearest neighbor is several miles away. People are fiercely independent and individualistic, but resources are treated somewhat communally. Of course, a lot of that is changing, but it's more true the more you move towards the "fringes" of society, in my experience. I knew folks who kept someone posted on the ridge to shoot at any car they didn't recognize (the sheriff literally called first when they had to respond to something or serve a warrant). At lot of methheads and a lot of folks on the run, but you'd never think twice about loaning them your truck or saw.