Here in the Midwest, where it’s so hot and humid that you glow with a sheen of sweat just from strolling around the block, people, it seems, like to be more alike one another than different.
Today in Madison, WI, for instance, which is “move-in day” for student housing, innumerable parents in pick-up trucks are unloading their children and those youngster’s possessions at countless apartments all across town and what’s striking about it—apart from the abundance of winter sports gear that come along with the kids—is how similar are all the versions of the families: Dad is wearing cargo shorts; Mom has on capri pants, and junior (male or female version) sports a tank top and a grimace.
Surprisingly (to me, anyway) is that the college-age person is the one offering up rules: “That isn’t the way it’s done,” says the child as father double-parks in front of the apartment. Mom just wants to make nice and feel confident that her darling has ample dishware, so she doesn’t say anything. Eventually, the young one relents, carries a box or two into the new abode and soon the stack of possessions migrates from automobile to vestibule while tempers remain as heated as the metal shelves baking in the sun.
Oddly, no one seems to minds that everyone does it the same way; apparently, the social pressures to conform are powerful enough that even the next generation prefers that the previous one acts like the one before that; mom and dad get props for toeing the line, clearly one that has been drawn long before any of the current artists came along.
Out West, where I come from, everyone wants to be different, which is, I suppose, just another way of trying to be the same. Maybe the model around here is more authentic; maybe ultimately humans strive to not stick out; surely, as hot as it is, the sensible thing is to hide in the shade.
Today in Madison, WI, for instance, which is “move-in day” for student housing, innumerable parents in pick-up trucks are unloading their children and those youngster’s possessions at countless apartments all across town and what’s striking about it—apart from the abundance of winter sports gear that come along with the kids—is how similar are all the versions of the families: Dad is wearing cargo shorts; Mom has on capri pants, and junior (male or female version) sports a tank top and a grimace.
Surprisingly (to me, anyway) is that the college-age person is the one offering up rules: “That isn’t the way it’s done,” says the child as father double-parks in front of the apartment. Mom just wants to make nice and feel confident that her darling has ample dishware, so she doesn’t say anything. Eventually, the young one relents, carries a box or two into the new abode and soon the stack of possessions migrates from automobile to vestibule while tempers remain as heated as the metal shelves baking in the sun.
Oddly, no one seems to minds that everyone does it the same way; apparently, the social pressures to conform are powerful enough that even the next generation prefers that the previous one acts like the one before that; mom and dad get props for toeing the line, clearly one that has been drawn long before any of the current artists came along.
Out West, where I come from, everyone wants to be different, which is, I suppose, just another way of trying to be the same. Maybe the model around here is more authentic; maybe ultimately humans strive to not stick out; surely, as hot as it is, the sensible thing is to hide in the shade.
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