Perhaps I’m treading into territory controlled by Nathan and Matt, DadWagon’s resident traveling salesmen journalists, but I’d like to write a word or two on what happens when urban-dudes such as JP and me leave the city and confront…the United States of America.
Now, folks, let’s not kid ourselves–New York ain’t no kind of America. The better-known stereotypes hold true: Southerners fry everything; New Yorkers are brusque and impatient; Midwesterners really are boring and non-confrontational; New Yorkers are socialists with opinions on things they know nothing about; folks on the west coast are vain and pretend to recycle more than they actually do; New Yorkers are obsessed with money and hair gel. All True!
As for parenting, to the New Yorker, the rest of the country is a paradise of school resources, slovenly competition, wild, abandoned budgeting, football facilities, and school buses. A beautiful, beautiful thing this America, where you can get your child educated for free. Free, I tell you! And no one thinks that if you don’t get into the proper pre-school that Harvard is out of the question! Or in the question for that matter!
Then again, I met a fellow with a nineteen-year-old and a fourteen-year-old who told me how happy he was with his older son because had gone to “vo-tech” (he’s a welder), and how unhappy he was that the younger simply insisted on going to college. This was something that junior needed to be talked out of, in favor of the military perhaps, or something else non-collegiate. Great idea, Dad–kill those dreams!
Yes, that was me smearing 49 other states with a single brushstroke, and that’s unfair. But how many people did I meet on vacation who expected me to account for every single action taken by Barack Obama–and not since he was elected; I mean, every single action taken by Barack Obama, including, but not limited to: peeing, nuclear detonations (imagined or otherwise), tax policy, hamburger preferences, vacation scheduling, and of course, relations with Israel and the Arabs (who were not often referred to as Arabs, unfortunately). So, other states, deal with it.
Anyway, I miss my family and I wish I could see them more often, and I enjoy my time in America’s playland whenever I jump out of a plane headed to the coast, but well, home is the Kingdom of Brooklyn, folks, where the elitism grows on trees, the writers sweep the streets with their idioms, and I have to get back to work.
Have a nice day (can someone please translate that into American?)
Before I moved from Vermont to Southwest Virginia/ Appalachia, I had thought Brooklyn WAS the south. Instead of “have a nice day” folks down here say, “be careful out there”, and mean it.