I don't like how some have no qualms about discarding their trash along riverbanks and roadsides.

I don't like how the many who aren't racist must suffer the embarrassment brought on by those here who are.

And I don't like the way we can't resist flaunting our superiority over Ohio. (Or is that just me?)

Beyond those few things, though, I'm impressed by how often our state seems to defy national trends. Recent stories about how Charleston is one of the top five real-estate markets in the country, for instance. Or how when the rest of the country is suffering vast numbers of foreclosures, our state doesn't seem to be hit nearly as hard.

It sometimes seems to me as if West Virginians neither enjoy the feast, nor suffer the famine. Sure, we still suffer some, just not the same way. Or perhaps our suffering doesn't seem as bad because our past has prepared and toughened us.

Over the past few decades, our nation has grown increasingly hands-off, and people are increasingly disdainful toward those who do labor-type jobs. But not here. The rest of our country has been overindulging, defining success by the wrong standards - by how much someone makes, the cars they drive, the brand of purse they carry or shoes they wear. There's been a quiet movement to hire out, to get others to mow our lawns, clean our homes, prepare our taxes, raise our children. It's almost as though the concept of doing it ourselves ceased to extend beyond calling someone else to do it for us.

But not here, where those who work construction or physical-type jobs are viewed as the real workers. Perhaps more so than those who wear suits.

A Realtor friend told me it's harder to flip homes for a profit in our state because fixer-uppers aren't as unappealing here as in other states because more of us are capable of doing the work needed ourselves. Homes don't have to be move-in perfect to move.

Perhaps the timing of this latest financial disaster won't be such a bad thing. We'll be forced to learn how much we can actually do without, or do ourselves.

Perhaps this will be the impetus that gets this country to be hands-on again.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman recently wrote, "We need to get back to making stuff, based on real engineering, not just financial engineering. We need to get back to a world where people are able to realize the American Dream - a house with a yard - because they have built something with their hands, not because they got a 'liar loan.' ... The American Dream is an aspiration, not an entitlement."

Many of those in our state still have a do-it-yourself mindset, which is going to again become an essential life skill. Our state is different from the rest of the country in a number of ways, and one of those ways is that we seem to be more practical and resourceful.

Change is coming. Instead of ducking under the covers and hoping it passes, we need to meet the challenge head-on. We need to make do with what we already have, finding ways to fix it up and make it better instead of casting it aside in favor of brand spanking new.

We need to remember that our children are watching to see how their parents react to tough times. Do we crumble under pressure and cry woe is me, or do we struggle and scramble and refuse to give up? Do those unaffected by the turmoil spend their time greedily guarding what they still have, or are they finding ways to help others who haven't been as fortunate?

We're at the very beginning of a time of adjustment, of being forced to shift and re-evaluate and change.

West Virginians are lucky. We're already pretty tough. That gives us a head start over the rest of the country.

Especially Ohio.

Reach Karin Fuller at karinful...@cnpapers.com.