�
2007-05-28 - 11:58 a.m.
Boy, they sure like a parade in this town. It seems like they'll take any excuse to roll the squad cars and fire engines down main street with their sirens on, and get a marching band going.
That's fine, I guess. But I wonder if they see the reason behind the pageantry. Do they understand that this day, Memorial Day, is about death? Do they understand that we're not celebrating, that this is solemn day, a day to remember the men and women who've died fighting in the service of the United States of America?
From what I can see and hear from my perch above main street, I don't think so. I think of the people in this town as a bunch of crows, squawking "Oooh, shiny!" And cawing to their breathren.
I thought I didn't like the city anymore, and I don't, I may never go back and live in Chicago again. But I don't feel a part of this town. I can't identify with this pack of avaricious, oblivious, ignorant people.
I've never liked suburbanites when I'd encountered them in the city when I lived there. They seemed provincial, small-minded, and shallow. And my opinion has not changed.
It's odd though, considering they live only a few miles from the city. These are not people who live forty miles out, and only ever go into the city for ball games and museums. A lot of the people around here commute every day to work in the loop. But still they give off that suburbanite vibe.
If you haven't grown up in the city, and lived in big cities most of your life, I doubt you understand what I'm talking about. I even have a hard time articulating what it is that I see in them.
And it's a whole 'nother thing than people who've grown up and lived in rural areas. It seems like suburbanites take the most negative aspects of both the city and the country. they take the small mindedness and xenophobia, and the yuppie status-symbol worship and combine them.
Of course, I generalize. I judge. Of course not every person in every suburb is a culture-poor, money-grubbing goof. Hell, even specific suburbs are different. In the Chicago metropolitan area, there are black suburbs, working-class suburbs, rich suburbs, hyper-rich suburbs, and, I call them "old-tree" suburbs like Oak Park, and Evanston. 'Course Oak Park and Evanston are right on the border of the city. What does that make them? I dunno.
Given my 'druthers, I'd like to live in a small town, away from a metropolitan center. But I'm sure I'd find something to bitch about there too. All that small-town-everybody-knows-everybody's-bizz-ness stuff, I guess.
But at least I could have a goat in my yard and no one would give me a hard time about it.
***************
�
So, how do you like them apples?