Living in America Part 1
Living in America
Hit me!
-James Brown
I live in a town of 12,000 in the heartland of America. After having spent most of my life on the East Coast, upon moving to the Midwest, I discovered one counterintuitive fact that makes sense when one considers the red America/blue America divide. Both my realtor and my car dealer tried to rip me off in stupid ways, something an Easterner would not do (though they might rip you off in more sophisticated ways). Thus at Neologian’s request and Thesaurus’ challenge, I begin a three part series about living in America that starts with my town, mids with my neighborhood, and ends with my neighbor.
My town has six superfund clean up sites (and other sites are waiting to be found). That works out to one superfund site for every 2,000 citizens. Feel free to compare this statistic to your town. In fact, my town may feature the tallest point in the county—a toxic dump that has been capped, re-capped, re-re-capped & etc. to the point that it is now quite tall. Recently the town board considered running the boy scout’s box-car derby down the “hill” until one parent (and only one…) protested that the highest point in the county is no hill. I should mention here that most of the town board members run their campaigns with the slogan “I’m more conservative than the other guy.” No, not kidding.
As the former home of a military base, the town is now about 1/3 the size of its cold war high. Even twelve years after the base-closing, more buildings are torn down than are built. Besides the EPA superfund money for cleaning up, the chief employers are autoparts factories. But this town is on such a losing streak (never mind the high school’s pathetic football and basketball teams), that the factories aligned themselves with 1) Mitsubishi (in trouble), 2) Ford (in danger of bankruptcy) and 3) GM (in Hell).
The police try to enforce cruelty-to-animals ordinances without much effect given the passion here for dog-fighting, cock-fighting, puppy-beating (not kidding), and kitty-kicking. Perhaps it is because the town itself is a model of animal-cruelty, and not in the good way. The town houses its lost pets in a shed next to, and again I am not kidding, its sewage treatment plant. As a human who nearly chokes on the reek as I drive by it, I can’t imagine how painful it must be for the olfactory-sensitive animals who are confined there until their owners retrieve them or until they are executed . . . for no less a crime than vagrancy.
The police here are to be credited with enforcing drunk driving laws – travelers beware, if you drink and drive around this town, you will be caught, our police are the best in the state at busting drunks. Incredibly, this town has one of the highest bicycle commuting rates in the country. Why? Because all the drunks who get busted for drinking and driving loose their licenses and thus have to bike to work. This means that every rush hour here is a parade of clowns with beer guts hanging over bicycle handles, peddling their way to work.
Forgive me, but I look forward to the week after each new disaster when I go to the supermarket. In four years here, you would be amazed at how many times I’ve heard that the end time is coming because of:
9/11
Corruption in state government
Earthquakes in China/Iran/Pakistan
Bus accidents
Plane crashes
The Indian Ocean Tsunami
The flood in New Orleans
The amazing thing is that these blasphemies are uttered by the elderly who have witnessed thousands of tragedies/natural disasters/acts of God over the courses of their lives. But they are like the child who tells you about her kindergarten teacher as if you personally know Mrs. Crabapple. Everything that happens is about them (thus Thesaurus’ complaint about American solipsism). It is for this reason that these townsfolk are sure that Osama bin Laden has targeted their hometown for his next terrorist attack. “But of course Osama has heard of _______. He must hate our precious Walmart in particular.” Alas, these are my people. God bless em’ ‘cause life sure hasn’t.
Next: My Neighborhood
P.S.
Neologian = genius
Definer = methodical
Thesaurus = sophist-icate
The gauntlet is picked up!
Hit me!
-James Brown
I live in a town of 12,000 in the heartland of America. After having spent most of my life on the East Coast, upon moving to the Midwest, I discovered one counterintuitive fact that makes sense when one considers the red America/blue America divide. Both my realtor and my car dealer tried to rip me off in stupid ways, something an Easterner would not do (though they might rip you off in more sophisticated ways). Thus at Neologian’s request and Thesaurus’ challenge, I begin a three part series about living in America that starts with my town, mids with my neighborhood, and ends with my neighbor.
My town has six superfund clean up sites (and other sites are waiting to be found). That works out to one superfund site for every 2,000 citizens. Feel free to compare this statistic to your town. In fact, my town may feature the tallest point in the county—a toxic dump that has been capped, re-capped, re-re-capped & etc. to the point that it is now quite tall. Recently the town board considered running the boy scout’s box-car derby down the “hill” until one parent (and only one…) protested that the highest point in the county is no hill. I should mention here that most of the town board members run their campaigns with the slogan “I’m more conservative than the other guy.” No, not kidding.
As the former home of a military base, the town is now about 1/3 the size of its cold war high. Even twelve years after the base-closing, more buildings are torn down than are built. Besides the EPA superfund money for cleaning up, the chief employers are autoparts factories. But this town is on such a losing streak (never mind the high school’s pathetic football and basketball teams), that the factories aligned themselves with 1) Mitsubishi (in trouble), 2) Ford (in danger of bankruptcy) and 3) GM (in Hell).
The police try to enforce cruelty-to-animals ordinances without much effect given the passion here for dog-fighting, cock-fighting, puppy-beating (not kidding), and kitty-kicking. Perhaps it is because the town itself is a model of animal-cruelty, and not in the good way. The town houses its lost pets in a shed next to, and again I am not kidding, its sewage treatment plant. As a human who nearly chokes on the reek as I drive by it, I can’t imagine how painful it must be for the olfactory-sensitive animals who are confined there until their owners retrieve them or until they are executed . . . for no less a crime than vagrancy.
The police here are to be credited with enforcing drunk driving laws – travelers beware, if you drink and drive around this town, you will be caught, our police are the best in the state at busting drunks. Incredibly, this town has one of the highest bicycle commuting rates in the country. Why? Because all the drunks who get busted for drinking and driving loose their licenses and thus have to bike to work. This means that every rush hour here is a parade of clowns with beer guts hanging over bicycle handles, peddling their way to work.
Forgive me, but I look forward to the week after each new disaster when I go to the supermarket. In four years here, you would be amazed at how many times I’ve heard that the end time is coming because of:
9/11
Corruption in state government
Earthquakes in China/Iran/Pakistan
Bus accidents
Plane crashes
The Indian Ocean Tsunami
The flood in New Orleans
The amazing thing is that these blasphemies are uttered by the elderly who have witnessed thousands of tragedies/natural disasters/acts of God over the courses of their lives. But they are like the child who tells you about her kindergarten teacher as if you personally know Mrs. Crabapple. Everything that happens is about them (thus Thesaurus’ complaint about American solipsism). It is for this reason that these townsfolk are sure that Osama bin Laden has targeted their hometown for his next terrorist attack. “But of course Osama has heard of _______. He must hate our precious Walmart in particular.” Alas, these are my people. God bless em’ ‘cause life sure hasn’t.
Next: My Neighborhood
P.S.
Neologian = genius
Definer = methodical
Thesaurus = sophist-icate
The gauntlet is picked up!
posted by Definer at 5:38 AM
1 Comments:
Bravo. You have indeed risen to the challenge. This was informative, enjoyable, and depressing reading. America, how we love you
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