Myths & truths: your city/town/village

[Possegal]

I never cease to meet people who have never been to my hometown and yet are certain it is a dirty, ugly steel town. MYTH

TRUTH - Pittsburgh PA is a gorgeous city and a wonderful place to live!! I miss it and wish I could move back there. Also wish I had the legs I had then - legs that could run and bike up all those Pittsburgh hills.

[shootingstar]

Must admit, Possegal I still have that stereotypical image of Pittsburgh.

There are other places that draw an absolute blank of any imagery for me -- ie. Oklahoma, Missouri..

[Trek420]

When I moved here a friend said "Hayward? There's nothing there but used car lots "

This place builds amazing custom motorcycles. They have a showroom/museum in front with their bikes, classic and historical motorbikes and .... antique bikes

[tulip]

I love Pittsburgh and its yellow bridges. That's a wonderful 7-Up bike, Trek420!

I'm not sure what people think about my town. Probably that it's still fighting the Civil War, which might be true in some circles. I think alot of people just don't think about it much. Richmond, Virginia. I love it here, though.

[SJCzar]

We do eat more then cheese, brats and beer here in Milwaukee.

Yes, we do have a bronze statue of "Fonzie" downtown (we do know how to have fun with our image around the country) but we also have a wonderful art museum and other cultural venues and activities.

[tulip]

We do eat more then cheese, brats and beer here in Milwaukee.

Yes, we do have a bronze statue of "Fonzie" downtown (we do know how to have fun with our image around the country) but we also have a wonderful art museum and other cultural venues and activities.

The only preconceived notion about Milwaukee that I have is that it's cold. "Happy Days" could have been in any city; I never associated it with Milwaukee. "Laverne & Shirley," however, did have the brewery thing going on during the song.

I probably shouldn't admit this, but I get Wisconsin and Minnesota mixed up all the time. Sorry, y'all. I gotta get up there to get it straightened out in my head.

[sfa]

Visiting with my FIL's new wife several years ago, she was going on and on about how much she hated Baltimore the whole time she was there. "There were muggers everywhere! You couldn't walk down the street without running into muggers!" Seriously, she kept talking about muggers and DH and I were looking at her blankly, having only known one person in all our time here who had been mugged. We finally figured out that this nice rural North Carolina bred woman was using the word "mugger" as code for "black people." Ugh. We knew there was a reason we took an instant disliking to that woman when we met her.

But, FWIW, in spite of what you may have seen in Homicide, if you come to Baltimore you're not likely to be killed or attacked by drug dealers.

Truths: the crabs really are that good and the people really are down to earth and unpretentious.

[Eden]

I never cease to meet people who have never been to my hometown and yet are certain it is a dirty, ugly steel town. MYTH

TRUTH - Pittsburgh PA is a gorgeous city and a wonderful place to live!! I miss it and wish I could move back there. Also wish I had the legs I had then - legs that could run and bike up all those Pittsburgh hills.

Seriously the mills were all either shut down or had scrubbers installed around the time when my parents were kids. I lived there until I went to college and by the time I left everything was getting to be very nice - we even had problems in the summer with algae bloom in the drinking water because the rivers were finally clean enough for algae to bloom....... (it wasn't harmful, it just tasted a bit nasty until they figured out how to filter it out) As far as I can ever remember the air was always clean in my lifetime. By the time I moved away there was only one working mill left - I think it was a wireworks, if I'm remembering properly. I've heard that most of the sites have been built over with high tech?

It was a great place to grow up. I can't speak for now, but then pretty much no crime beyond the petty stuff (stealing the radio out of your car kind of thing). I even remember laughing my head off watching "COPS" Pittsburgh and the big events of the night were some teenagers trespassing at an abandoned funeral home, some guys shooting craps on a corner and a female cop talking a drunk guy she knew down from a bridge (she had a beautiful south side accent too).

I love Seattle - and in many respects it is actually similar to Pittsburgh, but there are some things that I do miss. Even though Seattle is rather neighborhoody, the areas don't quite have the feeling of little towns the way they do back there. People aren't as openly friendly out here either, which I think is a big contributor to that feeling. I also miss the age of things..... sounds strange, but everything is so new here and not much store is put on preserving the older things we have (buildings especially). I miss the uniqueness a lot - things here are a bit too uniform and modern architecture is so bland. I'll take a a bit shabby and interesting over blah any day.

[shootingstar]

thx, Eden.

The nickname for our federal Liberal party has been "True Grit", for the federal Conservative party, "Tories". I guess that's a fact or Canadian modern legend.

Conservatives do tend to be associated with colour of blue, but that is not necessarily official. So it's more reversed for us..politically. However political marketing campagins can change.

[Crankin]

To add to the myth I explained, the owner of the LBS, who is Lebanese, was stopped by the police as he was pulling into his driveway. He was asked,"Whose car is this? Where do you live? Who do you live with?", etc. etc., as if he couldn't possibly be the homeowner of a nice house, driving a newer car. This is a guy in his forties, who has lived in town for many years.

The best way to find out what a place is really like, is to look it up in the Urban Dictionary on line. I found out Concord is described "as opposed to" the things in the towns I used to live in (neighbors and school rivals). It's hysterically funny and mostly true.
Here is an excerpt I just cut and pasted:
concord
A small town in MA 20 minutes from boston. There are a lot of punks running around and most kids do drugs because they can afford them. Concord is about average to upper class. Acton cares way too much about sports because that is all they can possibly have against Concord, but the truth is Concord doesn't care all that much about sports, and they are still good at them anyways, just in some cases is not nearly as good as Acton. Most Concordians are rich and can act stand-offish to people they don't like or are not from around here, and it's often confused with being snobby.
Tourists: "Let's take pictures of this historical town!"
Concordians: "Ew stupid tourists."
pronounced: concerd "Acton's jealous; pretty rich on drugs"

ultra slick; high class; quality; speedy and fast
You look so concord in those sneakers

That outfit is so concord

You are such a concord kinda guy, no wonder you can pick up chicks so easily, especially with that concord hairdo.

Check him out bro, he looks so concord

Any faster and you'd be concord

[bluebug32]

This is what I see out of my dining room window. I'll let you draw your own conclusions...