[at-l] What's an Outsider Anyway?

[jbullar1 at twcny.rr.com (Jim Bullard)]

At 09:04 AM 12/30/2005 -0500, Bror8588@aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 12/29/2005 8:10:55 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
>jbullar1@twcny.rr.com writes:
>this is a
>damn nice place to live even if some folks do consider me an outsider.
>Outsider?  What does that mean?  If people get to know you and you make a 
>contribution to the community and you have good relations with a few, what 
>more could you want?  Are you running for office?  Do they accept your 
>money at the local stores?  Have the people started stoning your car when 
>you drive through town?  If not then what is the problem?
>
>Jack
>Skylander

Ah, the perspective of a person from a big (make that huge) city. A nephew 
of mine who lived in Atlanta for many years then moved to a small town in 
Maine said he missed the anonymity of the city when he went to Maine. 
Perhaps you have to be a small town or country folk to understand. If you 
live in a big city it is accepted that your circle of friends/acquaintances 
will comprise only a tiny portion of those around you. That *tiny* portion 
can still consist of several dozen people. Small towns don't work like 
that. Or at least they didn't used to. That is changing as 'outsiders' like 
me move in bringing a larger world perspective to communities of people who 
have lived their entire lives within 20 miles of where they were born.

Nobody throws stones, they greet me on the street (sometimes), they are 
willing to take my money and I have no desire to enter politics but I am 
regarded differently by those who trace an unbroken ancestry back through 
several generations *in this place* than they regard those who share their 
family's history. Increasing numbers of people like me are a threat to 
their accustomed control over the community. It probably does not help that 
I worked for "the government" (an institution they are generally suspicious 
of) for 29 years, that I don't hang out drinking beer at the sports bar in 
town, or that I am an 'artist' and a hiker. In other words, I'm 
*different*. I related the true story once before on AT-L about the woman 
who moved with her family to a small town in VT at the age of 3 and lived 
there for the next 80 years in the same house. Her obituary in local paper 
the local paper began "Although she was not one of us...". It's like that. 
Subtle, but you feel it, you know it's there.