Con Games: I'm Allergic To New England

I am now thankfully at the tail end of a trip from hell through New England -- and no, it was not because of the godawful BoSawx fans now popping up like bowling pins amidst the dark clouds of Calvinist doom that perpetrate the primordial landscape.

It's for another goddamn good reason, as they say in Beantown. It because I'm allergic to New England.

My father and uncles and aunts were bred and buttered in Danbury, Connecticut, AKA the Hat City. I went to a small Catholic prep school in New Milford, Connecticut; went to college in Boston and stayed on in local newspapers for a total of nine years; then spent fifteen years more in the friendly confines of Burlington, Vermont. Most of my life, adult and otherwise, has been in New England.

In all of this time, in all of these years, not once did I ever get allergic to anything ever. In the last week we've been to Boston, Danbury, New Milford, Burlington, and back to Boston and I am so allergic to some as yet undefined thing I don't think I'm ever coming back.

[Insert snort, sneeze and wheeze here.]

Not that I really wanted to come this way in the first place. As I once said to my Mom: "Mom, if this is Brooklyn, you can have it." As far as I'm concerned, Mom, you can have New England. It's not only small but small-minded. It's not only crowded but a place where people think they can cow you by being louder than a Braintree banshee. And you have to stay up two hours later to watch the West Coast games. How stupid is that?

I can't wait to get back to Denver, Aspen, and the West -- the wide open spaces and really cool place, the wildlife, the rivers, the mountains, the light. I won't be allergic to anything once I get off the plane at DIA.

As for New England, a strong allergy medication might help but secession is always an option. Maybe this is a gift, a semi-perfect excuse never to come back to this freakin' wasteland ever again.

Who needs New England? Even the Pilgrims could see it for what it is now.

Comments

[wernerholm]

Ah yes, the wide open endless rings of suburbs that surround Denver. And choking on the fumes from all the cars. And the open minds of the "family values" crowd in Colorado Springs! And wonderful Grand Junction choked to the gills with cars and Wal Mart's. Of course there is ultra affordable Aspen, with its brown air and cocaine hangover from 1977. And the Mega shopping sprawl that Summit County has become, condo after condo built in dry forest.
If you want to get away from the endless burbs in Colorado, you have to go to Nucla, and get cancer from mill tailings while the meth lab in the motel room next door explodes.....
I grew up in Collbran, Colorado. Now I live in Burlington, Vermont. I had to get away from all the Californians and the endless suburban growth that goes with them. Have fun in the burbs of CO, and thanks for freeing up space in New England. I would rather look at all the pretty historic homes and buildings here, than the endless sameness of Highlands Ranch and Genesee

[Billy02118]

Six years ago I moved back to New England after 11 years in California. Every day, I thank God I'm back. I went to high school in Braintree, but I've never heard of a Braintree banshee. I don't know anyone in Boston refer to a "goddamn good reason", or anyone in Boston who refers to Boston as Beantown. It sounds like the author has been hanging out with a pretty base crowd. The time difference between the East Coast and the West Coast is 3 hours, but maybe ball games on the West Coast start an hour earlier than they do on the East Coast? I don't really care. But time zone differences are a pretty basic fact of life in the U.S. and shouldn't be too challenging or surprising to anyone.

I know, I know. It's all in jest. And so is this:

Don't come back.

[WilliamL]

Jim Morrison made it clear that the "west is best."

Once one goes West, it is hard to go back.

As is usually the case, people make the place.

The attitudes, the yelling, the behaviors, the lack of courtesy, decency, respect, and the rest.

The entire East Coast population sd. me marched to the top of Loveland Pass or the middle-of Wyoming so they might understand how trully insignificant they are in the larger scheme of things.

Such is what so many do not understand on the E. Coast, not all, but most...............................................