[Muncle]

A couple of things about the book excerpt really ticked me off. First, and easiest is Blechman's obsession with the belief that we're all running from children, that we want to lock ourselves away from anyone younger than us. Obviously the research trip he made to TV must have been from 9PM on a Sunday to 6AM the next morning. Must not have gotten an opportunity to drive by the Charter grade, middle, and high schools that the community supports financially and personally. Must not have had an opportunity to go by a family pool where kids enjoy our amenities all year long. Must not have talked to anyone about the intragenerational games organized and funded by our recreation division. And definitely must not have had the opportunity to visit any of the multitude of stores in the area where our isolated old timers shop side by side and often work side by side with families from the area.

Secondly, and this will probably :edit: off a few of you, Blechman personifies the attitude of too many New Englanders that anything west of the Hudson is beneath them. We who come from the great flyover lands are used to being denigrated by those from either coast. (Joke later) Somehow if it's Ohio or Illinois, Michigan or Missouri, the Dakotas or, go forbid, Arkansas, it's not worthy of a suave, urbane, sophisticated, just plain superior Californian, New Yorker, or Bostonian. Blechman would have had the same reaction had his friends decided to move to Oberlin, OH or Columbia, MO. Only a proper New England town could have the diversity and culture needed by a civilized person. Notice, the Cotswolds in England were almost acceptable, but Florida???

And frankly, I was ticked off by the low opinion Blechman seems to have of his friends. Today, in the womb of New England, they are wonderful creatures. They are very active in the community. They are leaders. They evidently live life to its fullest. Once they move to TGV, they will evidently have matching lobotomies. There is obviously nothing in which they can be active. There is nowhere they can lead. The old home town had acrimonious politics. Certainly there won't be any of that in Stepford The Villages. Somebody ought to send Blechman a copy of the POA bulletin. And maybe in the same package, include a writeup of Operation Shoebox, a locally created programs that's impacted worldwide. And may a list of courses for the Lifelong Learning Center, and . . and . . and hell, the package can't be that big.

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But enough of that. Now my story.

A friend of mine was going to school at Yale. He met and fell in love with a Bostonian girl. She invited him home to meet her parents. Naturally he was nervous. At lunch, the mother asked where his people lived. He explained that he'd grown up in Des Moines and all his family still lived there.

"And where is this 'Des Moines' of which you speak?" asked the grande dame somewhat haughtily.

"Why it is the capital of Iowa" my friend replied.

"Oh," she said. Taking his hand gently in her, she quietly whispered to him, "But darling, here in Boston, we pronounce it Ohio."