Another thought on the "Faggot!" business

If I am ever presented with a homophobe dumb enough to call me "Faggot!," I hope I have the presence of mind to remember this retort: "Close, but no cigar"--I would say this while gesturing to my nether regions.

Get it?

Well, fine. See if I share anything fledgling comic material with you again.

On other fronts, we spent a couple of days at our cottage, which it looks like we won't be selling for a while. The economy that W (as in "What were you thinking?!") has wrought has everyone all afraid to commit--to real estate, that is. Especially real estate that one has to drive a ways to get to, unless one lives up around here already.

Plus, the fact that said cottage is in an area that one realtor charitably described as a "mixed bag" doesn't help. So, we just have a few yokels mixed in with the Volvo wagons and Lexus SUVs--I rather enjoy the old school "seat belts are a Commie plot" townie contingent. They remind me of the folks I grew up with, even if that has a wicked downside (I know how nasty they can get when drunk, so I give them wide berth).

They were there first, true--and we "out-of-towners" are bringing change of an often unwelcome (some might say controlling to the nth degree) variety. But then, I don't drive out there to listen to and smell ATVs roaring through the community while I'm out on our little deck, either. And I'm not much for overflowing dumpsters as a decorative accent.

But these are minor quibbles. So, we're stuck with the cottage for a while. There are worse things, this I know...

Yup, there's more than a little animus between the year-round and the summer populations in the Berkshires. Just as there's more than a little animus between Smith students and the townies (of which I am one) in Northampton.

I am grateful for the culture and the money the school brings to town, certainly. Probably wouldn't be living here without it. However, I will not miss the crowds, the cars, and the death-defying pedestrian antics that accrue to this population in the least. And that includes the alumni. Last week, an alumna of a certain age stopped her car on Elm Street--in the middle of the road, not the side--to get out and talk to a woman who I'm guessing was a classmate back in the day. She acted as though she was on a private lane, perhaps her own driveway--not a public thoroughfare.

She did eventually get back into her car, but not before she invited said woman a ride to the quad--a whopping, oh, two blocks away.

Lazy and privileged--that's almost as good a combination as the homophobia and imprecise speech noted earlier.

Lest I forget, it is Memorial Day, and my sister spent part of the weekend planting flowers (or, more likely, plopping in some plastic ones) on the grandparents' graves in my home town (the location of the former 1559 Pierce Avenue). She probably stopped by to visit mom and dad (who are in a mausoleum, so flowers are verboten), too. Sigh.

Only dad was a veteran, but they're all missed. And not just today.