So I just got back from Toronto… one forgets not having been in a big city for a while not just how stinky and smoggy those places are, and also how rude. The big-city media I think has very effectively purputrated this myth that small town equals closed minded, when all of my experiences suggest the opposite.
I can walk freely here in tinytown; no one particularly cares or comments, and when they do, while it may have a yokel tone, it's entirely nonthreatening. Toronto on the other hand was nothing but whispers and surrepticious angry stares… I don't know if it was fear, or anger, or what it was, but it was pretty unpleasant and uncool.
I think the answer is the picture below, taken from our front yard by me a few minutes ago. Somehow I think the only way those people are going to see this scene is if nuclear armegeddon strikes in their backyard. And that's very sad, and it helps me understand why they are so full of despair (not that it justifies their hostility).
I remember years ago when a friend moved up to Toronto to live with us (who some of you may have seen on the cover of various pro BMX magazines). Like me, he had stretched ears; his were about an inch at the time (this was long before that was subculturally “normal”). He came from a medium sized town, big enough not to know everyone, but small enough still to maintain some decency and courtesy.
Several weeks into living in Toronto, I remember him sitting on our kitchen floor, sobbing… because he wasn't used to everyone staring, everyone insulting him under their breath, and everyone treating him poorly just for having stretched ears. In a small town, you're still a person… In a big city, you're just a stereotype I suppose.
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