Small Town Livin' Big City Tallulah
Before I became the feast or famine freelancer that I am, I worked for a few major corporations. These corporations included: a very large HMO, worldwide Ad Agency and major motion picture studio. What always killed me was the culture, the daily swims with sharks, the high-school type cliques and panty hose. When Mr. Tallu and I decided to pack up and move to where the grass was greener, (literally), and start a farm/studio in a very very small town in West Virginia, we were under false hopes that we would leave the clique-ish politics behind.
Yesterday at the crack of dawn, I headed down to the county fair grounds where I volunteered to help with a spaghetti dinner fundraiser. It was great fun and for a worthwhile cause. But as I helped cook and serve the meal, I observed in horror the politics of this small community. Issues the size of mole hills, easily turn into mountains and Hatfield/McCoy riffs bred like rabbits. They're all so busy creating tension out of thin air it is no wonder nothing ever progresses here.
I have learned that if your pleasant to one person another will be easily offended by who your were polite to and cross you off their "get to know" list. Even the one you maybe pleasant with will turn around to the offended person and stab you in the back-because they don't want another enemy. I don't really care, except that if I ever had to take a minimum wage job at the local market would that local market actually hire me?
My old house that I lived in for 12 years, I knew only 2 of my neighbors. Why? Because in city/suburbs the cliques are the clicks of the garage door opener and once their in, they don't come out until morning when it's time to go to work. Rare did I spark a conversation with a neighbor on Saturday morning while gardening in my back yard..why? Because it was only hired gardners that worked on Saturday mornings in my neighborhood.
So it comes to this, it can be a lonely world out there no matter where you are. So long live the Best Friend! As long as I have my Yaye (600 miles away) these people won't drive me crazy.
Yesterday at the crack of dawn, I headed down to the county fair grounds where I volunteered to help with a spaghetti dinner fundraiser. It was great fun and for a worthwhile cause. But as I helped cook and serve the meal, I observed in horror the politics of this small community. Issues the size of mole hills, easily turn into mountains and Hatfield/McCoy riffs bred like rabbits. They're all so busy creating tension out of thin air it is no wonder nothing ever progresses here.
I have learned that if your pleasant to one person another will be easily offended by who your were polite to and cross you off their "get to know" list. Even the one you maybe pleasant with will turn around to the offended person and stab you in the back-because they don't want another enemy. I don't really care, except that if I ever had to take a minimum wage job at the local market would that local market actually hire me?
My old house that I lived in for 12 years, I knew only 2 of my neighbors. Why? Because in city/suburbs the cliques are the clicks of the garage door opener and once their in, they don't come out until morning when it's time to go to work. Rare did I spark a conversation with a neighbor on Saturday morning while gardening in my back yard..why? Because it was only hired gardners that worked on Saturday mornings in my neighborhood.
So it comes to this, it can be a lonely world out there no matter where you are. So long live the Best Friend! As long as I have my Yaye (600 miles away) these people won't drive me crazy.
posted by Yaye & Tallulah at 11:25 AM
4 Comments:
Oh yeah, I hear you Tallu!
I always heard emigrates from small towns talk about the claustrophobic, incestuous back-biting social system that they escaped, but I never met it until I moved up here to my little corner of Connecticut. Everybody knows everybody, and they all have some kind of history. I have had the nasty little in-fighting imposed on me too. It seems unavoidable if you are going to have any kind of social life. As you know, I've pretty much backed away from it the best I can and keep my visits short and sweet with the locals. Me big city girl too.
On the other hand, these people give to one another and help out even strangers in a way that's almost unknown in the self-centered metropolitans I've previously called home.
Your basic "grass is greener" trade off.
Thank goddess we have each other!
jes, regrettably there's such a fine line between barn raiser and cross burner.....
it seems that the television and the automobile have done much to disrupt geographical bonding....I really have nothing in common with my neighbors. the one friend i have made at my work commuted in from the other direction and so is a good 100 mile round trip to visit. one does what one must.
though i must needs say that jo and i are yearning to leave the backwaters of sub-urban ventura and head to warmer and more civilized climes... our self imposed cultural exile in mayberry hasn't exactly put us on the short list for a macarthur grant.
hmmm... though maybe for a darwin award:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/04/04/state/n132701D13.DTL
Does that mean The Valley, Mr. Arrrrgh?
Is a 40 mm round really big and heavy enough to be a paperweight? Post-itweight, maybe?
What.... Ell Arrrgghhhh movin' to the Valley??? No....don't go....don't...
A 40 mm round is big enough to blow off many body parts. I thought that there was zero tolerance in CA schools...I guess not in laid back Ventura...
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