Saturday, August 22, 2009

Weathering the storm


I was sitting by the river the other night reading when I was startled by my neighbor climbing up the steep bank.


“I didn’t know you could get down to the river that way,” I yelled.


“Jeeze. You startled the old man. Shit I almost rolled right back down this sumbitch.”


Surprisingly, this started a conversation. He grew up in Missoula and considers it the “big city.” (It has a population of about 50,000.) He said he wanted to get away from the “big city” because he doesn’t like being around so many people. Then I asked him what he likes about Superior.


“People are friendly.”


That’s what I find so odd. So many people in Superior claim to like the small town because it allows them to escape people. But then they say they enjoy the small town because the people are so nice.


Cities do present an interesting dynamic. It’s amazing how much easier it is to feel lonely in a big city. You’re surrounded by everyone but connected to no one. In Superior, I wave to everyone I see whether I know them or not. That’s just the way it is. I have to do it. It’s bad enough that I still have New York plates.


But I don’t quite get why these people in Superior, who claim they like not having to be around people, love the fact that they have nice interactions with people. Can anyone explain this? It fascinates me.


In other interaction news, I met a woman in a laundry mat. Not like it sounds. She was gray haired. We started to have a nice conversation, though. That is, until it turned to politics.


She started bashing Obama’s healthcare plan. I didn’t ask her if she relies on Medicare, but I was prepared to. I’m so sick of the misinformation that is out there and I was absolutely prepared to try to give her some of the facts. But as soon as I started to do so, she started talking about the weather.


I’m aware that people use weather as a neutral topic of conversation, but I’ve never been in a conversation that turned so benign so quickly. I guess some people just aren’t looking for storms.


Comments welcome,
Andrew

8 comments:

  1. Hi Andrew,How the weather(ha ha). I never talk about poltics because must people have there way of dealing with it.I try my best to talk about general things.If they get upset to bad. Be like grandma. Alan

    ReplyDelete
  2. HI ANDREW: FOR A FEW DAYS I HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO READ ANY OF YOUR STORIES IN THE NEWSPAPER? I FIND IT BEST NOT TO TALK ABOUT POLITICS OR RELIGION WITH PEOPLE YOU DO NOY KNOW. IT IS FRUSTRATING.
    LOVE GRANDPA

    ReplyDelete
  3. CHANGE THE Y TO A T SORRY.....GRANDPA

    ReplyDelete
  4. Alan,
    Weather has been fine. Yeah, I think you're right.

    Grandpa,
    Yeah I haven't been able to post for the past few weeks. We got a new editor and I had been using the old editor's log in. Waiting to get access to the admin site again. Only about 1/4 of my stories make it online. Web site not the focus here, which is too bad for the people who are checking in on me via this blog.

    ReplyDelete
  5. It really it too bad... your loyal readers have nothing to do while they sit in their apartment all day... Website is more of a focus than anything else at my place. Strange how that works. haha. And, oh, I'm just living in a small city because people live in small cities and like to be alone but not really(and making fun of lawyers because people make fun of lawyers...). Also, that is not proper catching form. Old Reliable would be pretty disappointed...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Looks like the knee's doing just fine though...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Nick,
    Maybe Web site focus is difference between daily and weekly? More like diff between living in a place where ppl have comps and living in a place where people don't know how to open an email with attachments. I keep hoping to come across a JDONN byline in the Missoula paper because it runs a lot of AP investigative stories, but no luck. As for the catch, I had already made it, I was in the process of trying to drag my feet. Old reliable can have fun in Cinci.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Don't worry about that woman. She'll be in front of a death panel soon enough.

    ReplyDelete