Country girl

I drove into the Bronx on Friday to look at a car for my little brother. It was a great deal... online. When I actually got there, it turned out the car didn't even exist but was only a ploy to get people like me to come in and find my dream car that cost three times the amount I intended to spend. I didn't fall for it.

This post is actually about my experience before I got to the car dealership. I got lost in the Bronx, with a GPS. Well, not technically lost, I just couldn't find where I wanted to be. Is that lost?

Anyway, while I was driving around trying to find said location, I drove through a neighborhood just as school was getting out. I spent a lot of time in traffic and stopped at red lights, so I had a lot of time to observe these kids. As I watched them running down (and through) the streets, dodging cars, getting on buses, catching trains... all I could think about was how they just didn't know what they were missing.

These poor kids didn't have a horse to go home and ride. No dog to greet them as they got off the school bus. No cats with kittens hidden in haystacks that needed to be found. No lone chicken that lost feathers to the dog on a regular basis. They didn't have motorcycles and old pickups to take out into the desert. They didn't have rivers to swim in (sure there's rivers, but don't touch those with a ten foot pole). No caves to explore. They didn't have room to roam and discover new beautiful things in the countryside around them. These kids just didn't even know what the rest of the world had to offer. If only they could have the childhood I was blessed to have.

Then it hit me, these kids probably could care less about all the stuff I loved as a child. They probably thrive on the city and all its cityness. The honking horns, the ambulances and fire trucks that are always on there way to someplace. The people selling things on the side of the street. The sounds of brakes that are worn out from stopping at so many stop lights. All the noise that relentlessly reverberates off the tall buildings. They probably didn't even mind the garbage and dirty feeling of the streets. And people say "there's always something to do in the city."

I'm just glad I grew up on a farm, in the sticks, with nothing to do.