Once upon a time . . . my parents moved to the boondocks, or what their collected families thought were the boondocks, way out in Plymouth-Canton. It was a very confusing time and there was much discussion about how to get to the farmlands of Canton. Taking Joy Road all the way out was often an option.
As an aside, before Stu (and others, I'm sure) gets pissed off . . . I grew up in Canton, the poorer (and lesser in some opinion) of the two suburbs of Plymouth-Canton. My parents eventually moved to Plymouth . . . but I am a Canton girl, if that matters to you. Just so I don't hear Canton under everyone's breath when I say Plymouth. By the way, Canton now has better McMansions and better social amenities . . . have you seen their pool?
So while driving Joy Road all the way from Wyandotte one day my Great Aunt Hazel made a startling observation, which she then shared with my parents. "There is a little shopping center on every corner out here" she informed them. My parents, who knew that they had not moved to the permanent boondocks and that there would soon be McMansions built over the little shopping centers, nodded and smiled. And then they made it the family joke . . .
I know I'm taking a long time to get to it, but that's how I felt in New York this visit. Except that the line was "there's a little Urban Outfitters on every corner" instead. When did Manhattan turn into a mall? As I described it to my father (who says he hates New York), "it's just like Somerset, with a couple of rats thrown in to give the tourists something to talk about." Actually, I only saw one rat and that was in the subway . . . and he wasn't very big.
Everything was relatively shiny. Everyone was . . . for the most part, nice. I was only accosted by a woman in a Burberry coat because I was criticizing her parenting skills (one should not let two year olds take the stairs by themselves on the subway). (Molly got the brunt of it . . . and she wondered why the lady was screaming "I saw that face you made . . . " until she remembered that I was behind her) (But the Burberry lady was British, not a New Yorker)
The Starbucks employees were always shocked by MY politeness, especially when they f*#ked up my order, which happened more than you would think but . . . yeah, maybe Disney did take over the place. It seems like they put something in the water. So basically, I can't move to New York because it is way too nice . . . that and it seems that I could just move to Somerset and get some smallish rats.
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5 comments:
People in Mcmansions are booing you right now . . . you are right though, being from Plymouth is cooler than being from Canton, even now. Which is WHY I always said that I was from Plymouth . . . and why you always said "Canton" under your breath, since you really were from Plymouth.
Or ARE from Plymouth . . . since you are not commenting from the afterlife.
Actually, the facts are a little scrambled in the story--true none the less.....and Canton was the edge of the earth, where downriver persons were sure there would be no beer!!--Sort of like the frontier in 1776!!!
One has to remember that I was eight at the time and there is some artistic license involved certainly . . . mostly shortening. (and in dealing with the Reichens, I meant making things brief, not having to do with lard or Crisco. Those girls loved their Crisco.)
Just for the record...
the shopping centers on every corner were in Arizona, promised land of the retired...
and the trip on Joy Rd. by HFRM was INTO Dtw, not out toward Canton--but both events were true...just unrelated except in "lore".....
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