Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

33 19 17

Grew up in a small town, now live in a larger town/very small city.

voted for the winner, but of course

Grew up rural then suburban and have been urban since I left home.

subs then, subs now; city in between

City all the way and can't see that ever changing TBH.

I chose rural to city, although it wasn't quite that straightforward. I grew up all over the eastern half of the U.S. as a military brat, but I spent pretty much all of my teenage years in Midwestern backwater nowheresvilles.

grew up rural, moved to city

burbs lol, that's where you move to have babies, become conservative and boring

(sorry)

I grew up in a rural area, 5 miles outside the city limits of an already very small town in Idaho, and I hated it so much. Having to get up at 5:30 a.m. to get the school bus, because it stops by your house first because you live in the middle of nowhere = dud. Also we lived on some 50 mph road, which it sucked to ride my bicycle on or walk alongside, esp. since there were no sidewalks.

Everyone who lived on my street was seemingly quite paranoid. There was this just regular middle-aged white guy who would walk up & down the road and smoke cigarettes. That was enough to make him a suspicious character. My parents called the cops on him once & I was just enraged with them because this guy was doing nothing illegal (also I'd just read Ray Bradbury's "The Pedestrian" and was enormously upset to see it played out in front of my own home). I apologized to the guy the next day on my parents' behalf & he said others on the street had called the cops on him, too. Man, fuck that.

haha that Bradbury story!

"Occupation, please."
"I'm a writer."
"No occupation."

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uh. city, suburban, rural, city, suburban so?

Would a town with pop. 35,000 that was about 100 miles away from a real city be considered suburb or rural?

neither

:(

I think retelling that story about my parents calling the cops on that guy put me in a foul mood all the rest of the day. I didn't realize how deeply angry this incident still makes me!

Grew up in a working-class suburb of Helsinki, lived in the city for 8 years, but for the past 3 years I've been living in a more middle-class suburb, because I got a small apartment there cheaply. However, I'm starting a better-paid job in September and I'll probably move back to the city area then. I like living by a tram route, and I don't like taking a taxi or night bus when I'm going home from the pub, it's nicer to live within a walking distance from the pubs, cinemas, shops, etc.

I think retelling that story about my parents calling the cops on that guy put me in a foul mood all the rest of the day. I didn't realize how deeply angry this incident still makes me!

The whole story sounds pretty weird, I don't quite get it, especially if others had called the police on him too... What was the reason for calling the cops? That he was smoking cigarettes? That he was just hanging around?

I mean, if you call the cops on someone, don't they ask you what crime you think this person is committing?

It was probably this guy.

Yeah, they called the cops on him because he was "suspicious." Meaning not in a car, and of course among Mormons smoking is practically tantamount to holding a sign saying "I'M WITH SATAN."

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subs->urbs

So in the US you can call the cops on someone just by saying he's "suspicious"? Don't the cops, like, ask if this "suspicious" person is actually doing something criminal before showing up there?

It's likely that they'll ask, but that won't stop them from dispatching an officer to check it out, just to be on the safe side.

I mean, I have no first-hand experience with calling the cops on a "suspicious person" other than having them called on me for that reason often enough as a teenager.

But I've called the cops for plenty of other reasons and so it's a fairly educated guess.

I think most cities in Florida except Tampa, Miami, and Jacksonville are all suburbs.

us cops call it "leading a lewd and desolate lifestyle", i believe.

uh, i mean United States cops. i'm not a cop

Cosign that an adult walking down the side of a road on foot is viewed as tantamount to serial killing in the rural and semi-rural US.

If they didn't have anything to hide they'd be driving a car like a normal person. Obv they are either poor or drunk/mentally ill. In any case, that's a potentially dangerous situation.

I talked to him – he just liked taking a walk to feel refreshed/get a little exercise, plus he didn't like to smoke in his house.

So sinister!

It's cause he was cooking meth in his house.

He had a ponytail, too, which I think was also too far out for my parents to feel comfy.

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