We went out to dinner last night with our younger daughter, her boyfriend, and his parents, here from the East Coast. At this point in time, we're getting more comfortable with each other, and it was good to see them again. On the other hand, there is something to this East Coast/West Coast thing that makes us not quite understand each other. I went to a writer's conference in New York years ago, and that was when I first got it - that there is some kind of nebulous, generic thing about each coast that the other believes. And there are differences. The idea of what diversity means is different. The sense of property and what that means seems contrary. The contempt of easterners for western history is at odds.
I was recently speaking to someone who lives on the west coast but grew up on the east coast, and he bemoaned the lack of history in America, and the richness of European history. A lot of us westerners see our history in terms of Native peoples, and our architectural sites as Mesa Verde, Canyon de Chelle, the Cakokia mounds in Missouri, the sacred mountains and lakes. So there is plenty here to tourist around and see, but it isn't European, or imitation European, like Washington DC and New York. There's a sense of classlessness, too in the west, whereas people in the east want to "place" you, and are frustrated. Westerners tend to be nomadic, at their base, and Easterners more rooted. They take pride in their cities, we in our natural wonders: Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Crater Lake, the Painted Desert.
Well, that's enough generalizing for one day, my apologies.
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