I come from a high-density population region. I now live in a low-density region. There were a few things that I had to learn in order to adapt to this environment.
You can’t hide in the crowd. My high school class was over 200 strong. It was not difficult to disappear into the mob. In fact, it was often desirable. Underachievers were bred in these conditions. You didn’t have to be great, just not horrible. There were always enough of the ones who didn’t care that made your mediocrity look pretty good.
In a small town you can’t help but stick out. Everybody matters. Where I came from, you could be abducted by a flying saucer and the only ones to miss you would be your immediate family, and then only at meal times. Here, they are asking about you and your name comes up in church when they have the “special concerns� part of the service. Everyone wants to know why they haven’t seen you for the last two weeks and why are you looking so tired? They actually care.
I was not used to this suspicious behavior. We recently were in New York City and I noticed that nobody makes eye contact. There are just too many people. It would result in sensory overload or worse, perceived weakness. In the city, people try to be “hard� targets to discourage bad guys from approaching them. Around here we constantly make eye contact, often with an expression that seems to say “Do I know you? And if not, why not?� Sometimes we are actually looking for the bad guys.
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Volunteering is cool. In the big city, nobody volunteers. Paid services fight the fires and rescue the injured. Contrast this with the average volunteer ambulance call that takes the crew away for three or more hours, resulting in missed meals and/or broken sleep, often several times a week. Sometimes you don’t even have time to “hit the head� before taking off on a call. Talk about personal sacrifice.
So which is better? Let’s put it this way: When someone goes missing in a small town it leaves an actual hole in the community. Sometimes it is a welcome hole, but not usually.
The big city is more like that war movie where the guy goes down and all his buddies are concerned with is where are his leftover cigarettes and K-rations that he won’t be needing anymore. Everybody has a little more room to spread out in the tent now. It is perceived as a benefit.
In case you were wondering, I keep my chocolate bars in my top pocket.
Bill Abrams resides, and spreads his wings out, in Pine Plains.
