Random Musings

I have neglected blogging... it was spring break, we are going to buy a house here, and my youngest child, well he's 4.

Here are things on my mind, about living in a small town in the South, which this blog seems to be about a lot lately. But that's my life right now. I am being an "arm chair" sociologist with my observations, but I never said they were generalizable. Remember I was born and raised in the Midwest in a stable middle class family. I went to college in a college town in the Midwest, and then lived in Minneapolis for 13 years, where I completed two more degrees, worked, and lived in the urban core.

1) I have a bumper sticker which says "I'm Ready for Hilary."  Per a mom's night out, I am known for my bumper sticker (or maybe that my car has duct tape on it and looks like hell, but hey it's a Toyota and it runs).  I never thought about putting on bumper stickers until I moved here (and when I was younger my dad would have been quite angry at me for doing this). But after neighbor incident (see a previous post on being called a Yankee), a religious debacle in regards to public schools here, and being in Southern Baptist land,  I might be more afraid to put "liberal" bumper stickers on. But you know what, part of me wants to shout to the world, yes, I am a pro-choice, LGBTQ ally, feminist, anti-racist ally, etc and you can't make me leave or hurt me.  But the other part of me wonders, and a lot of this stems from teaching sociology and criminology/criminal justice courses and students and knowing their biases, will I get pulled over just because of my sticker?  Will someone try to hurt my children because I have this bumper sticker?  Or maybe as a few friends have asked me, do people here ven know what this means?

Trust me, I have thought about having a contest of who could send me the most awesome bumper stickers about all the causes I am for and seeing what happened (maybe I could write that up for a journal for an ethnomethodology experiment).  Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. But I know at least when I see an Obama/Biden bumper sticker on a car, I smile and feel in good company.

2) License plates here... you can pick from the old design or a newer one. But you also get the option to have "In God We Trust" on your plates. Why do people pick this? How do they see religion and god? Knowing that the "In God We Trust" on our money stems from Communist fears back in the day, what does it mean know in the South, in the Deep South?  I want to be tolerant of different religious beliefs, but it has been hard here. A lot of this is the influence of the Southern Baptist church here. It's not pretty for folks who believe in rights for many oppressed folks or women's rights. 

3) Can I live in this small town? It's about half of the size of the town I grew up in.  But it's all catered towards college students.  We are buying a house because the rent is inflated here being a college town and honestly my partner and I are more the homeowner type of people (a longer story for another day). I guess if I don't get tenure or it doesn't work out, we could rent at an affordable price to faculty. 

But back to the point about can I live here? I finally have that dream TT job!!! I am finally getting back into the research mind after applied work and training. Yet, I miss things from the city. I miss having museums less than a 15 minute drive. I miss having IKEA (yes, I do... you can spend hours just looking around). I miss having good restaurants and grocery stores that stock stuff we buy. I miss being anonymous in ways too. I miss having a selection of bars to go to for happy hour where I don't know everyone there.

And I feel guilty at times about bringing my family here. We moved here for my job. This means that we miss out on things we left. How will my kids feel when they are teens living in a small town? How do I repay to my partner for his move here, where he lacks many things he enjoys and outlets for his work? 

Yes, there are pros... it's warm. We can garden longer. We can drive to the ocean in about an hour. We have a cool town about 45 minutes away. But sometimes I feel that I am going crazy here... I'm being honest and that's what I have to be now. 

Until next time....