Outside the bubble...

I mailed two computer-printed photos of the recent July 4th parade in Chappell Hill up to my cousin F on Long Island.  The pictures were taken by our friends J and J as we were all watching the parade, and those two particular photos showed the longhorn cattle with their riders.  Each longhorn was wearing a blanket and saddle, each saddle held a rider between the ages of 8 and 18.  The cattle were well-trained, the riders were smiling and waving.

My cousin F took one look at how close we were sitting to those "huge horned beasts" and she got on her computer and blasted me an eMail asking me if I'd lost my city-mind.  "You were sitting so close to the cattle! What if they had gone wild and run themselves into the crowd?! You and your husband would have been the first ones in line for those horns!! You could have both been killed!!!"

Killed? At a little July 4th parade in Chappell Hill?  That thought never crossed my mind. "Well, of course not!" (said cousin F)-- "You're living in a tight little bubble down there!"

And of course, my cousin is correct.  We don't have city-stress here (wildlife adventures not counting as city-stress)... we don't have the northeast rumble and bumble of me-first attitudes... we don't think that everyone we meet is out to get us.... and sitting at the fringe of a 4th of July parade and being two feet away from longhorn cattle who could toss us into the trees with one sideways swing of their horns just never crossed our minds.

We are indeed living in a bubble.  We live in a town where car doors are hardly ever locked, even when they're parked outside a store on the main 'downtown' street and the motor is left running so the car stays cool with the air-conditioning.  Store-keepers leave merchandise outside on the sidewalk all day long, and sometimes overnight, without a thought that someone could walk away and take them. (The word "steal" probably doesn't come into play in this town.)

I've invited my cousin F to come down here for a visit time and time again. I have suggested that if she gave this town a try, she wouldn't want to leave our guest rooms. I've offered her the guest rooms over the barn or the guest cottage..... "Take your pick! Stay a week, stay a month, stay for the rest of your life!"

She's not ready for such an adventure. She's never flown on a plane before, and it's going to take more than this little bubble to get her down here. Looking back on all my years on Long Island, that's about as outside the bubble as one can get.  I wonder how long it would take to drive from Long Island to the Hill Country....