My friend was itinerant editor who contained wisdom about country life. After living in the country for seven years my friend moved to Reno where I wrote for a magazine he edited. One spring morning, saying little to anyone, he packed up his bicycle and peddled across the country back to Kentucky where he disappeared into the Appalachian mountains.

Decades later information about him re-emerged on the internet. He had returned to living rural and started a sanctuary. He left the art of hunkering behind when he wrote an article for Mother Earth News titled “ the Gentle Art of hunkering”. He described how he, a long haired hippy looking guy with bottle thick glasses, approached old-timers in the country.

Generally speaking, you squat. If it’s in the city squatting in place is more likely to denote a social status. You might be viewed as street person or homeless.

In the country, squatting is associated with an exchange of information. A posture may form along side of a barn with the lumbar region of one's back comfortably resting against aged wood or even in the middle of the road, or by a stream. The posture requires lowering your head to signify that you are actively listening. Hunkering takes different forms. A twig just appears and becomes married to short hand explanations. Dirt writing might involve maps or a diagram of the right “crik” (angle) to a particular horse’s neck.

There is an element of sandpainting as nature blends with an exchange of information when the wind sweeps away either mindless doodles drawn during during listening and contemplative responses or symbolic references to the elemental daily stuff of life.

There are other qualities to hunkering as well. Speech tends to be relatively slower and modulated than urban exchanges. Sentences are shorter and the lexicon is sparser. There are few descriptive adjectives. Rather such things as superlatives tend to exist through tonal quality, "She shore is purdy!"

Hunkering has valuable information if you get the codes. My friend described it as “conversational small change” which can be used over time. Small change engages what is called generalized reciprocity in anthropology. This makes hunkering an important practice for newcomers. One participant might have a good line on hay prices, or know the best way to shingle a barn or the cutting time for the hay crop that year.

If you don’t carry this small change you might stay an outsider.

If you want generalized reciprocity you have to know something about the people around you and follow the traditional motif. It may be that the person who knows something about a handyman might offer nods, grunts, and meaningful smiles talking about another person leaving you to find your own way from there.

A topic change can be heralded by a dash of space: throat clearing and spitting, (if you're a man) rolling Bull Durham tobacco, cleaning your fingernails, scraping a wood fence with a pocket knife, or punching a hole in a leather strap.

The other person is also seeking information. He might be about to sell you a $200 horse for $2000. So it’s a good idea to pay attention. A typical closure is drawn out. Usually the last topic is mutually wound down, interspersed with, “Yup" or “you don't say?" Then an affirmation is made if there was some negotiation in progress or a thank you for information. Eventually, you are part of a network, a whole and someday you’ll say “Sam'll know” or “we'll see about those eggs."