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

[Bror8588 at aol.com (Bror8588@aol.com)]

In a message dated 12/30/2005 9:50:41 AM Eastern Standard Time,  
jbullar1@twcny.rr.com writes:

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.



Well, it is true that in Huge Cities there is anonymity galore.  We  had some 
friends over on the Fourth of July from the suburbs to celebrate.   Our 
building has a roof garden that is a great place to view the Fireworks that  Macy's 
puts on for the people of NY and our friends were amazed that we knew  people 
in the building; in fact, we knew more people in our building than they  did 
in the communities where they lived.  Being dog owners helps us to get  
acquainted with others in the neighborhood but more than that, we have building  
parties on the roof at least three times a year (Opening of the Roof, Fourth of  
July, and Closing of the Roof) as well as parties in various apartments  
throughout the year.  So it is a social building and that makes life here  good.  
Of course, one always has the option of staying closed within one's  own 
apartment and not participating.  Freedom of choice is a good  thing.  And, because 
there are fewer native New Yorkers in our neighborhood  than those from other 
regions of the country we do not have the feeling that  some are "outsiders."  
I was born just ten blocks (one half mile) from  where I reside but I am in 
the minority.
 
I think a lot of the "stigma" of being an outsider comes from within a  
person.  Of course, if my tires were slashed when I parked at the Forest  Road #42 
parking lot I might feel differently.
 
Skylander