There was an old Michael J. Fox movie, “Doc Hollywood, that ran in the background while I did other things this morning. The theme was a cliché – big city doctor wants to move on but gets stuck in a hick town and falls in love with a local. The “happy” ending is he changes his whole life to stay there and live a real life instead of the sorry thing he would have had if he had gone on to assume a lucrative practice as a plastic surgeon in Hollywood. Talk about a script writer stacking the deck.

The theme recurs because it relies on an ages old conflict between shallow, big-city sophistication and what is passed off as the more decent, more “honest” values that exist in small towns.

I have often mentioned that I grew up in Chicago. I didn’t know I was a big-city sophisticate full of elitist put-downs, so it came as a shock to me, when my mom took me to visit relatives in a small town in Indiana (or maybe it was Wisconsin) to be treated by the locals as a big city threat and had to be watched lest I steal something. I was 9. Those were attitudes I couldn’t relate to, and so began in me a life-long suspicion and resentment of small town citizens who make draconian assumptions about people from big cities that extend to their minor children.

These same misconceptions hang on today. Yes, it’s boorish of big city people to diss small towns, and by the same measure, it is boorish of small town people to assume that all big city people are shallow, heartless, cruel, dismissive, and unworthy to be Americans (the tea party mantra).

And I have encountered the same shit in Florida. One woman made my acquaintance as I walked and said perhaps we could walk together. Why not, I replied. She said she would come by at 8. There was nothing about her that drew me to her – I can sense when I have things in common with people, but I knew she had been recently widowed so I wanted to be supportive. I joined her the next morning and we started out toward the big road. I was altering my schedule to accommodate her. That day, I told myself, I wouldn’t do ballet stretches in the park because then she would be stranded. We started to share information about ourselves. I told her Ed and I had moved down here from New York City. She told me she was a religious leader at the local Elks. She used a title I can’t remember. When we reached her house that I thought we would continue on by because our destination was the park, she suddenly turned into her driveway and said she had things to do. Was it the mention of New York? Was it that I didn’t drop to one knee and kiss her ring when she told me about her religious calling? I’ll never know.

I can tell you one thing: I got to do my stretches, and I did not lose any sleep over her rejection. The point I am making here is that the big city, shallow person (me) was willing to get to know her, and she was so put off by my origins that she bailed right away. I find it easy to let go of such people, so, please, no sympathy is necessary.

xx, Teal