Scraping through the New Yorker veneer

When I lived in the West Village, I once knocked over a small, elderly lady in a grocery store. I turned the corner from the pasta aisle to the oil aisle and then my very large 25 lb. backpack hit knocked her over mid-turn.

Obviously, she was irate and I remember the following line, "How can you walk like that? That's like another person in there!"

I looked at her and said, "Ma'am, I am sorry. But it looks like you are going to live."

She looked at me blankly at first. And then burst in to enormous laughter. And then I joined in. I saw her later at the seafood counter, and we shared another good laugh.

It was definitely a New York moment -- one that I will never forget.

* * * * *

I was watching the Daily Show and I was reminded how much I would really like to take issue with the people that people are rude. Watch this clip of Sarah Vowell of NPR fame. (sorry for the crappy embedding)






I realized that I felt the same way.

I too went to public schools.

I too grew up in, well not Wasilla, but in Ohio.

I too came to New York grudgingly. In short, my wife made me, or it was curtains for our relationship.

I too believed that the city was dirty, people are rude, and its cost prohibitive to have fun.

But now I am in that latter camp that Sarah mentioned, I don't understand why every dumps on New Yorkers as a bunch of arugula-eating elitists.

I think that it's just that most think that New Yorkers are rude, and I'd like to dispell that.

What my fellow Midwesterners need to realize that New Yorkers live in a paradoxical quandary of space. Basically, we have none to ourselves. So, we all have defense mechanisms .... they can be sunglasses, our iPods, or sometimes a just pretending we are talking on our cell phone.

But it is just a veneer. We don't have space of our own, so we have a natural inclination to defend. However, you can imagine one thing that New Yorkers are good at as another consequence is that we are great at sharing. I mean, how else are you going to pack 8 million people into a city (oh and by the way, make it the safest big city in America, so sayeth the FBI)?

Of course, we could reach out, and I personally do my part to try and help lost tourist souls midtown. We need to be more proactive in that end, and we are working on that.

But in the meanwhile, please don't be afraid to approach us, or ask us for help. We are some of the best sharers in the world. Yes we have our quirks, but who doesn't.

My encouragement to everyone is to just scrape through the New Yorker veneer. On the subway, in Times Square, at Ground Zero-- ask us a question. I think you too, might be suprised.