Back at work

My return home was pretty uneventful. The train was right on time, the weather did what it ALWAYS does - it gets really nice, really lovely, right before I'm due to leave, and I find myself saying to myself, "You took a job in Oklahoma why?"

(Of course, hearing about the state of Illinois' state finances - presuming I would be working at a state school if I were still living there - is enough to make me sigh and figure I'll tolerate the 100+ degree weather in the summers here).

There are things I miss about my parents' town and things I don't miss. The biggest thing I miss is proximity to family, although increasingly the balance will tip from "I need help" to "they need help" as my parents age. (Then again - my father is going through another round of PT and may regain better knee mobility). I once said that forty-five minutes was probably the optimal distance to live from family - you were far enough away that you weren't always in each others' business, but you were close enough that getting together for a meal or to help out when someone needed it was an easy thing. (This was part of a discussion with a grad-school colleague; her attitude was that a minimum of 2 hours was ideal. I think her relationship with her family was different from mine....)

I miss the wide range of grocery stores. I remember my mom commenting when we were out shopping one day that the store we were in either didn't carry the brand she liked of a product, or it was cheaper elsewhere....for me, unless it's available at Wal-Mart or Green Spray, there isn't really an "elsewhere," unless I'm willing to drive an hour's round trip.

I miss the fact that they have cool days occasionally in summer. Here, it's very rare we have a summer day below 90 degrees. (Though every year I hold out hope we'll get a freak cool year).

I miss a lot of the small businesses. They have a couple specialty-foods stores that sell stuff I normally can only get via mail order. And they have the Sewing Studio, which sells dressmaker fabric and supplies as well as quilting fabric. And there are marginally more bookstores than I have regular access to ("marginally," now that the Border's is gone).

I don't miss the attitude of some of the residents. As is often the case with progressive-minded college towns, there's a certain...smugness...that some of the residents have. A sense of unwillingness to walk in the shoes of others and to consider that different people may either be on different paths or have validly different beliefs. It's funny - the South often has a reputation for being closed-minded, but it seems that here, there's more of a willingness to shrug and say "people are people" or something like that, rather than either lecturing at, or sighing heavily over, someone who doesn't do things exactly the way you do. There's perhaps more of a live-and-let-live attitude, or maybe more of a "I may think you're wrong, but it's not really polite for me to continually tell you that I think that."

I also don't miss the cavalier attitude that the local city council seems to have towards some long-time businesses and such. There is a group of people on there now who want to make the town like a small-scale Tinley Park or Hyde Park (ritzy sections of Chicago) and don't consider that they've priced a lot of the students and probably most of the faculty of their university out of eating at the fancy new restaurants or putting up relatives at the fancy new hotel. (Also, our "twin city" is talking about spending beaucoup money to put up "entrance arches"....at a time when city services are stretched for funds). The little downtown where I used to go when I needed a break from writing on my dissertation is essentially gone - many of the buildings I knew have been pulled down, several of the businesses that were there are gone forever, one of the long-time businesses still is there but had to move...and there are fancy new places. They have a CVS now and at one time it was rumored they were going to get an Old Navy and similar stores...making the downtown less distinctive and more like any mall you can go to.

I guess on balance I'm better off here...especially, as I said, considering the relative states of state-financing here and in Illinois. (Here, for example, at least for now, I'm not worried about being told, "Sorry, there won't be any teacher's-pension money for you. Thanks for all you  paid in over the years!")