These Are The People In Your Neighbourhood

If you are looking for a way to meet your neighbours, I suggest simply getting pregnant, taking your year of maternity leave and walking up and down the street with your baby on a daily basis.

I have met more of my neighbours in the nine short months my son has been around than I did in the eight previous years.

While I have always said hello to my neighbours, most of whom live in the city and only come up on weekends, holidays and summer vacation, when you are pushing a baby stroller, people will come right up to you and stop and chat.

It has been wonderful.

I have met so many interesting people including one woman who has been coming to this neighbourhood since she was a girl in the 1940s. PG has three daughters and in the wonderful small world that we live in, I actually worked with one of her girls. I had never met L, who worked at my parent company, but we chatted on the phone a fair bit, and I finally got to meet her this summer when she popped to say hello.

So to recap: Baby equals great opportunities to meet new people.

You Know You Are a Redneck When ...

I grew up in a small town. I currently live on a street that is closely surrounded by two small towns and my nearest grocery store is another small town away.

I have fabulous memories of small-town living - hours spent outside, building forts, hiking through trails, discovering CC Tree, playing in fields.

I went to high school in a larger town and then immediately went to Humber College in Etobicoke for journalism, doing my work placement at The Villager in the Bloor West Village.

I had no trouble going from small-town girl to big-city woman.

But if you listened to city dwellers, particularly those born and raised in the city, you would think that anyone who grew up or chooses to live in a small town must be a redneck.

Why is that?

Why is it OK to make prejudicial remarks about people who live in a small towns?
I expect many “city folk” are racist as noted by the number of hate crimes you read about in the city papers.

It’s been my experience that if you are a good person, a good neighbour, other things simply don’t matter.

“Country folk” like people who are friendly, who don’t mind stopping to chat and lending anything from power tools to a cup of sugar.

So I am sure people will forgive me if I get a little angry if people assume that because you live in a small town, you must be a redneck.