Every Town Is Our Town

I'VE BEEN THINKING a lot about my attitude towards small towns recently.

I caused a furor in the "small town" of Duluth, Minn, last week by calling into question the amount of cultural activities there (Crimson, April 1). Well first I should make it clear that Duluth is no small town. With 100.000 citizens and a metropolitan area population of more than 130.000, Duluth has to be ranked as a city and I think that's where my problems begin.

I think of Duluth as a small town, and by anyone's objective definition--well, anyone who doesn't live in New York City--it isn't. Subconsciously, I characterized Duluth as some kind of ultimate Midwestern boondock and it isn't. Duluth has an airport, regular plane service, modest but established symphony and ballet troupes as well as a fairly sizable university. There are many places much smaller and much further off the beaten track than Duluth.

But these facts have almost nothing to do with "attitude."

Like all city slickers, I figure that any place in from the coasts and not in Chicago is more or less the same. It turns out that the Midwest thinks of itself as more than one big lowa farm. I have learned the hard way that the people who live in America's heartland are less than comfortable with my gross generalizations, but at first. I couldn't understand why they took such offense at my remarks.

I was going to write a diatribe claiming that their overreaction to my stories is just an extreme example of the attitude I accused them of in the first place--an overblown chauvinism for their rather modest hometown--er, city I wanted to point out that when people publicly attack the place where I grew up, my city doesn't get up in arms about the incident. We, I planned to write, know we have a great community and therefore we aren't hypersensitive to criticism.

ALL THAT, however, isn't fair. When the former governor of the neighboring state recently called the Washington, D.C. government an "Amos and Andy" show, I took offense. I don't think his observation, which was likely motivated by personal bitterness, was constructive; it reflected more about him than it did about the city. That's probably a lot like what Duluthians were thinking when they designed a banner just for me last week: "Nick Wurf is uncouth".

Although I obviously disagree--there's nothing wrong with my table manner--there a point to be made here. I was going o say these Chauvinists were only proving my point, but then I though of my characteristic reactions to remarks or comments about D.C.I actually live within the city limits and I am quite proud of that fact. I go so far as regularly to correct Virginians and Marylanders who introduce themselves as Washingtonians.

"You mean," I comment derisively, "that you live outside the city."

That's a pretty stupid thing to say. My upper middle class enclave just happens to be 15 minutes closer to downtown than the ones in the suburbs. Ah, but herein lies' "attitude." Admittedly, I think big cities should impose commuter taxes to force rich parasites, who enjoy the docile rurified advantages of suburban existence, to pay for their share of may city's public services. Of course in my mind, the city life offers many advantages over life in the suburbs, but that's just a personal valuation, and I have no business foisting it on anyone else.

Naturally, there are some groups who are considered consistently egregious in this respects. For example, a lot of New Yorkers are known for their holier-than-thou-because-my-city's-bigger-than-thine syndrome. We are all familiar with their use and abuse of the term "The City," which leaves their fellow New Yorkers from States Island, Queens. The Brons and Brooklyn none too pleased.

Manhattan friends joke around and tell me they like Washington, which they will not characterize as a city, but merely as a quaint town I laugh aloud but silently fume at their insensitivity.

ON THE OTHER hand, judging from some of the responses say critical article has received from Duluthian, they aren't above gross generalizations about East Coast insensitivity. They like to assume that all of the here at Harvard are born-and-bred snobs--just as they assume that we all live on Beacon Hill and prepped at Andover and Exeter. The rest of the country acts as if it has somehow risen to a higher spiritual ground by moving out to the country. I doubt that the clean air makes them morally pure.

I am not from-New Jersey, but I know the what-exit-do-you-live-on nonsense would be a constant irritation. Ditto to the I-spent-a-week-in-Cleveland-one-day remarks. And I suppose that some would he hurt to hear that suicide-in-Buffalo-is-redundant. Maybe I've learned the hard way. A little mutual respect would go a long way.