Tag: people

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The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

While a lot of what I’ve been posting lately is about how wonderful and rosy everything is here. I do have to admit that there are a few things I encounter here that I didn’t encounter in San Francisco that take a little getting used to. So let me tell you about them.

The following is a list with comments I’ve put together that aren’t in any particular order, but it’s a comparison and contrast of living in San Francisco to living in Northampton, MA that is taking a little getting used to:

  1. You’ll drive more to get places: but you’ll get better gas mileage and it’ll take you less time to get there.
  2. It’s hot and humid in summer and cold and dry in winter: Make sure any place you think of getting has central air and heating. You’ll thank me for that advice.
  3. Did I mention it’s humid?: It rains a lot and you’ll get wet, but in the summer it can be like getting in a shower.
  4. Snow…it freezes and gets slippery: You’ll need an SUV for the family and definitely snow tires for the winter.
  5. Bugs: We got them. BIG BUGS. You’ll have lots of mosquito bites when you get here, but luckily most bugs don’t come inside. See picture above. I had to get rid of a wasp nest in front of our house in the first week.
  6. Vermin: It’s cute here. Chipmunks, squirrels, bunnies are all over, but they can do the same damage as mice and rats.
  7. Gender fluidity is really fluid here: Sometimes you’ll be talking to someone and you just can’t figure out if they’re male or female. It’s not unusual to find women with mustaches and men with breasts who are still actually female or male. I kind of got hit on by a lesbian who didn’t realize I was male.
  8. Healthcare is either free or really cheap: But it’s a headache to get set up right.
  9. Doctors are different: They seem more interested in asking about your sex life and sexual partners than whether or not you physically feel OK.
  10. People are different: They’re really, really nice and helpful and don’t have a chip on their shoulder. That’s a good thing, but it’s weird compared to San Francisco.
  11. People are people: There’s way less us vs. them here. It’s a bit homogeneous, kind of like the Marina in SF and people put themselves before their ethnicity. Pride day wasn’t trying to make a statement so much as being a celebration for all.
  12. Food: There are farms everywhere so fresh produce and meat is pretty easy you just have to check out a few places to find the best deals. While we live ten minutes from downtown Northampton and thirty minutes from Springfield, MA there are farms that sell direct within five minutes.
  13. Eating Out: Mexican and Chinese food can be had, but it’s a bit of work to find it and don’t be surprised if you see a pulled pork burrito or Philly cheesesteak egg rolls. Those are a thing in Western Mass.
  14. Walmart: You’ll end up loving it and hating yourself for loving it, but the people are paid pretty well here and get a 401k as well, unlike in other parts of the country that you hear about in the news.
  15. Clothing: You’ll need a lot of it for the different seasons. It’s not uncommon for the basement of a house to have a cedar lined room for your winter clothes
  16. Houses: Closer to town is more money, but usually older and might have a few problems. You can get newer houses 5-10 minutes from downtown, but you still need to check the year it was built. Some can be awesome, others will definitely need work. The most striking part is that because the houses aren’t butt up against each other they look small, but when you read the stats of the houses they’re actually bigger.
  17. Schools: They’re great especially if you’ve got a special needs kid, but you just have to learn the language they speak because it’s a little different than in California. As mentioned before gender identity is a really big thing here, even more so than in San Francisco.
  18. It’s so “White” here: Actually it’s not. Hispanics are included as Caucasian, Spanish Surname. Yes, compared to San Francisco it’s going to look a whole lot more white, but it’s really a whole lot less Asian until you notice the large East Indian population that’s here as well and the fact that the population while diverse is a bit more homogeneous and adaptive.

That’s a good start for now. I’m sure there will be more added to it over time. I have yet to experience anything really abhorrent here, but there are a few things that we’ve needed to adjust to. I’m still not sorry I had to move, but the Connecticut River isn’t quite the replacement for the Pacific Ocean and yes, there is sourdough bread here, but it’s not as sour as in San Francisco. If anything it makes me question how special San Francisco sourdough is since it doesn’t taste too much different here.

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That Waving Guy

If you’ve ever driven by 33rd and Vicente on the weekends [sometimes during the week] you’ll see a guy sitting in a wheelchair with a little white dog in his lap. He waves to every car that drives by hoping they’ll wave back. We always do and he always smiles at us. I happened to catch him yesterday and decided to stop and talk to him.

He’s an interesting guy. His name is John and his dog is named Winston Churchill. He told me he’s been sitting out and waving for the past five years when he and his wife Pat were in Mexico and he [like I] suffered a stroke. He can’t do much, so sitting and waving at people is pretty good entertainment for him. His seemed to be a lot worse than mine though as he pointed to his right side when he told me and used his left hand to shake mine. He had a bit of trouble speaking which I remember having as well, but as I said, mine was minor.

I didn’t get to ask him too many questions because he was telling me all about his and Pat’s trip to Mexico and how it was always warm and beautiful and he kept going on about the posole that it was the best in the world. Which I’m sure isn’t hard to deny considering posole in Scotland would probably be awful.

So I finally got to meet him and John is a nice guy. He doesn’t stay out there very long, but I did learn that I’m a good guy which he told me after Winston started trying to climb on me. John’s a happy guy all things considered and Winston knows people. I told him that I was going to write about him and I always hold my promises. Here’s to you John!

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BART Protest: When good ideas go bad

I have to count my blessings that I don’t work downtown at the moment because yesterday’s protest would have done the exact opposite to me of what the protesters wanted. Yesterday was a day when a good idea when wrong and I’m not even sure it was that good of an idea.

There is still a little dispute about whether it was because of the shooting of a homeless man who while being drunk threw a bottle at BART police and then drew a knife and started to come at them or whether or not it was BART cutting off cell phone service last week. There’s a couple of problems with each of these.

First, Charles Hill, attacked police officers. Sure, they probably could have done some TV style police moves and disarmed him and got him to the ground, but TV isn’t real life. He had a knife pulled out and after throwing a bottle at police started to come towards them. I don’t know if he ran, lunged or just stood there stabbing the air in the direction of the cops, but he was a threat. Oscar Grant on the other hand, wasn’t a threat. I can see people protesting that incident, but not this one.

The second is the Guy Fawkes masks protesting censorship by turning off cell phone service underground to protestors. Here’s a couple of things. I actually liked going into the station after work at one of my last jobs because the cell reception was crap. I could barely get 3G service on my cell even in BART so to me if BART and Muni kept their mouths shut no one would have noticed. The second is that most of the protesters probably don’t know that Guy Fawkes came to fame by being a religious fanatic in England who was caught sitting on a number of powder kegs to be used to assassinate King James I and hopefully restore a Catholic Monarchy in England. Fawkes ended up committing suicide at his execution by jumping from the scaffold he was to be hung from before he was to be drawn and quartered. Choosing one pain over a more grisly pain. The Brits back then only hung you until you were almost dead, then dropped you, tied you down, sliced off your genitals, then ripped your guts out and if you were lucky as the last act of mercy beheaded you. Actually, now that I think about it, the people who make V is for Vengence should have done some homework as well.

Many people are calling this a denial of freedom of speech. No one was denying their the right to speak, just not on cell phones which work poorly underground anyway. I’m not even sure why you would need a cellphone at a protest anyway since you’re supposed to make your voice heard to those you are protesting against.

Much of this fell on deaf ears. Yes, there were BART Police there and many of the protesters were arrested, but did they get their point across? In my opinion, NO. When you stage a protest your goal is to bring the people around you into your outrage and join you. What this protest did was anger those people who were trying to get home from work to be with their families. No to have their trip home interrupted by a mass of people angry over the death of a man who attacked police or because they couldn’t use their cellphones in a place where cellphones don’t work very well in the first place.

I think the protesters today need to do a little homework to learn how to be more effective. Perhaps it would have been better to protest at BART headquarters, but that would require more work to get there. People will not join your cause if your only purpose is to disrupt the people. BART and MUNI don’t really care too much about that, but the people do.

 

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