Belleville: It’s Not Me, It’s You
The whole of Canada hates Toronto.
Even though I loooooove Toronto, I can’t say I don’t get it. I mean, I can think of a hell of a lot more reasons why the whole of Canada should hate, say, Calgary – with its hot-and-cold unpredictable weather [Chinook is Native Indian for “the joke’s on you!”], and its we-don’t-hire-foreigners-and-by-foreigners-we-mean-Ontarians hiring policy, and its constantly go, go, GO citizens with their skiing and their snowboarding and their hiking and their mountain biking and their mountain climbing. I’m sorry, I moved to the city to get away from people like you! But I understand why Toronto is the bigger target. I certainly understand why Calgarians hate Toronto: Toronto is everything they want to be, only without the monogrammed belt buckles and with taxes.
Toronto has been called “rude, snobbish, smug, boastful, pretentious, obnoxious, arrogant, hoity-toity, brash, crass, uptight, workaholic, lazy, self-absorbed, self-centred, self-obsessed, self-satisfied, spiritless, cold, out of shape, unfeeling, unsmiling and unfriendly.” (Linda Diebel, Toronto Star) But as a true small-town Belleville girl at heart, I can think of three “valid” reasons to hate Toronto.
#1. The price of real estate.
$170,000 in Belleville will buy you a three bedroom, two bathroom, fully detached house, in a nice neighbourhood, with a driveway, and a two car garage, and all new appliances, and a brand new furnace, and a landscaped backyard. The house will come with sunny windows. And a patio set – completely rust free! There will already be a sign out front of your new house with your name on it when you move in. The neighbours will have already added you to the neighbourhood watch group. (But there isn’t all that much crime in the “Friendly City”, so they will mostly only be watching the squirrels dig up bulbs from your garden.) And a friendly dog will wait on your front stairs, a basket full of goodies held gingerly in its teeth, to greet you on move-in day.
$170,000 in Toronto will buy you a 100 square foot crack den with a flickering single light-bulb dangling from the ceiling and a shoe rack by the door.
#2. Not enough Country Music on the radio.
Percentage of Radio Stations that play Country Music in Belleville: 50%. I will grant you that there are only, like, four radio stations – maybe five if you count the Christian station and the College Station as a half a station each. But Country is King on Big 8 Country and the brand new 100.9 FM. The new station’s tag line is “So Hot, It’s Cool”. I swear to God I can’t make that stuff up.
Now I’ve never been a country music fan. My natural tendency has always been to turn up my nose like the smug, arrogant, hoity-toity Torontonian I would become. But country music sounds like home. The strains of Shania’s break-out “Any Man of Mine”, Alan Jackson’s toe-tapper “Chattahoochee”, Garth Brooks classic sing-along “Friends In Low Places”, I swear to God even Billy Ray Cyrus and his annoying “Achy Breaky Heart” take me back home. They take me back to a time where we all used to just drive up and down the main street in our trucks, blasting music and mouthing to each other from opposite lanes: “BOWLING ALLEY” or “WATERFRONT” or “TIM HORTON’S PARKING LOT”. There aren’t too many choices for teenagers in a small town. They take me back to the first long weekend of the summer seasons: May Two-Four. Back to a friend’s cottage, with copious amounts of beer and peach schnapps. (Not mixed together. Ewwwwww.) Where there’s a sign on the bathroom door that reminds you: “If it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down.” Where Babie-J and I decided to go for a drunken dingey ride and only realized when we had reached the middle of the lake that the dingey was LEAKING and we were going to die a terrible death of hypothermia unless we paddled our inebriated asses back to the shore FAST. Where we stayed up all night one year trying to convince our strongest friend that it was, in fact, not a good idea to go swimming in the middle of the night after polishing off the last of the 2-4, and better he should sleep under the picnic table with all of us standing guard above him. Where I introduced my big city boyfriend to real tail-gate parties and he looked at me in all earnestness and said “You mean, people actually just hang out in the back of their trucks? I thought that was just in the movies.”
Percentage of Radio Stations that play Country Music in Toronto: basically zero. Why no love?
#3. The Ball Cap is not in fashion.
I took a quick and unbiased (read: totally unscientific) poll while driving around Belleville this past Easter Weekend. Percentage of men in cars driving by me wearing baseball caps? 100%. And these are a special breed of men. These are the D-men: the Darrells, the Dougs, the Dwaynes. (But also, occasionally the Gords.) You know them to see them. Darrells, Dougs and Dwaynes wear Hockey ball caps: Leafs, Senators, Habs. A die-hard Darrell will wear an old Nordiques or Jets hat. A Backwater Doug will wear a John Deere meshy. A posh Dwayne will have bought the ball cap fitted to his head. But mostly, Darrells, Dougs and Dwaynes prefer the original adjustable plastic snap-backed baseball cap. Darrells, Dougs and Dwaynes are the kind of guys who drive 1987 Pontiac Sunfires. Maroon. With four major rust patches: one on a wheel well, one on the driver’s side back door, one on the hood and one right by the key hole for the trunk. The hubcaps are mismatched. The original passenger’s side back door has been replaced with a turquoise substitute. The rear view mirror is missing. The radio is blaring Big 8 Country. Or, alternately, a cassette tape of the original “Frosh” compilation, but the tape has worn thin at track number seven because Darrell (Doug, Dwayne,) cannot get enough of David Wilcox doing “The Bearcat”. Darrell (Doug? Dwayne?) is clad in a mesh Buffalo Bills Jersey (with Jim Kelly’s number on it – because Thurman Thomas? Was a fairy.) Overtop of that jersey? You guessed it – plaid flannel shirt. His jeans have rips in the knees, and we’re just thankful he has finally retired the acid wash. And his feet sport a pair of work boots from Mike’s Work Wearhouse. Darrell (Doug and Dwayne,) always looks over at me while waiting for the light to turn green and gives me the “You wanna race?” look. His car makes a faint “putt, putt, putt, cough… wheeeeeeeze” sound as it pulls away from the green light. My little Hyundai Pete perks right up and speeds away from the Darrell – not in the I’m-racing-you-and-totally-kicking-your-ass way, but more in the your-car-smells-bad-and-I-don’t-want-to-inhale-your-fumes way. And me? I have that smug look on my face that says “I live in Toronto now.”
Percentage of men in cars driving by me wearing baseball caps in Toronto? 0%. For some reason, this makes me terribly happy. I take it as a sign of maturity on my part that I no longer find the ball cap attractive.
Even though I loooooove Toronto, I can’t say I don’t get it. I mean, I can think of a hell of a lot more reasons why the whole of Canada should hate, say, Calgary – with its hot-and-cold unpredictable weather [Chinook is Native Indian for “the joke’s on you!”], and its we-don’t-hire-foreigners-and-by-foreigners-we-mean-Ontarians hiring policy, and its constantly go, go, GO citizens with their skiing and their snowboarding and their hiking and their mountain biking and their mountain climbing. I’m sorry, I moved to the city to get away from people like you! But I understand why Toronto is the bigger target. I certainly understand why Calgarians hate Toronto: Toronto is everything they want to be, only without the monogrammed belt buckles and with taxes.
Toronto has been called “rude, snobbish, smug, boastful, pretentious, obnoxious, arrogant, hoity-toity, brash, crass, uptight, workaholic, lazy, self-absorbed, self-centred, self-obsessed, self-satisfied, spiritless, cold, out of shape, unfeeling, unsmiling and unfriendly.” (Linda Diebel, Toronto Star) But as a true small-town Belleville girl at heart, I can think of three “valid” reasons to hate Toronto.
#1. The price of real estate.
$170,000 in Belleville will buy you a three bedroom, two bathroom, fully detached house, in a nice neighbourhood, with a driveway, and a two car garage, and all new appliances, and a brand new furnace, and a landscaped backyard. The house will come with sunny windows. And a patio set – completely rust free! There will already be a sign out front of your new house with your name on it when you move in. The neighbours will have already added you to the neighbourhood watch group. (But there isn’t all that much crime in the “Friendly City”, so they will mostly only be watching the squirrels dig up bulbs from your garden.) And a friendly dog will wait on your front stairs, a basket full of goodies held gingerly in its teeth, to greet you on move-in day.
$170,000 in Toronto will buy you a 100 square foot crack den with a flickering single light-bulb dangling from the ceiling and a shoe rack by the door.
#2. Not enough Country Music on the radio.
Percentage of Radio Stations that play Country Music in Belleville: 50%. I will grant you that there are only, like, four radio stations – maybe five if you count the Christian station and the College Station as a half a station each. But Country is King on Big 8 Country and the brand new 100.9 FM. The new station’s tag line is “So Hot, It’s Cool”. I swear to God I can’t make that stuff up.
Now I’ve never been a country music fan. My natural tendency has always been to turn up my nose like the smug, arrogant, hoity-toity Torontonian I would become. But country music sounds like home. The strains of Shania’s break-out “Any Man of Mine”, Alan Jackson’s toe-tapper “Chattahoochee”, Garth Brooks classic sing-along “Friends In Low Places”, I swear to God even Billy Ray Cyrus and his annoying “Achy Breaky Heart” take me back home. They take me back to a time where we all used to just drive up and down the main street in our trucks, blasting music and mouthing to each other from opposite lanes: “BOWLING ALLEY” or “WATERFRONT” or “TIM HORTON’S PARKING LOT”. There aren’t too many choices for teenagers in a small town. They take me back to the first long weekend of the summer seasons: May Two-Four. Back to a friend’s cottage, with copious amounts of beer and peach schnapps. (Not mixed together. Ewwwwww.) Where there’s a sign on the bathroom door that reminds you: “If it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down.” Where Babie-J and I decided to go for a drunken dingey ride and only realized when we had reached the middle of the lake that the dingey was LEAKING and we were going to die a terrible death of hypothermia unless we paddled our inebriated asses back to the shore FAST. Where we stayed up all night one year trying to convince our strongest friend that it was, in fact, not a good idea to go swimming in the middle of the night after polishing off the last of the 2-4, and better he should sleep under the picnic table with all of us standing guard above him. Where I introduced my big city boyfriend to real tail-gate parties and he looked at me in all earnestness and said “You mean, people actually just hang out in the back of their trucks? I thought that was just in the movies.”
Percentage of Radio Stations that play Country Music in Toronto: basically zero. Why no love?
#3. The Ball Cap is not in fashion.
I took a quick and unbiased (read: totally unscientific) poll while driving around Belleville this past Easter Weekend. Percentage of men in cars driving by me wearing baseball caps? 100%. And these are a special breed of men. These are the D-men: the Darrells, the Dougs, the Dwaynes. (But also, occasionally the Gords.) You know them to see them. Darrells, Dougs and Dwaynes wear Hockey ball caps: Leafs, Senators, Habs. A die-hard Darrell will wear an old Nordiques or Jets hat. A Backwater Doug will wear a John Deere meshy. A posh Dwayne will have bought the ball cap fitted to his head. But mostly, Darrells, Dougs and Dwaynes prefer the original adjustable plastic snap-backed baseball cap. Darrells, Dougs and Dwaynes are the kind of guys who drive 1987 Pontiac Sunfires. Maroon. With four major rust patches: one on a wheel well, one on the driver’s side back door, one on the hood and one right by the key hole for the trunk. The hubcaps are mismatched. The original passenger’s side back door has been replaced with a turquoise substitute. The rear view mirror is missing. The radio is blaring Big 8 Country. Or, alternately, a cassette tape of the original “Frosh” compilation, but the tape has worn thin at track number seven because Darrell (Doug, Dwayne,) cannot get enough of David Wilcox doing “The Bearcat”. Darrell (Doug? Dwayne?) is clad in a mesh Buffalo Bills Jersey (with Jim Kelly’s number on it – because Thurman Thomas? Was a fairy.) Overtop of that jersey? You guessed it – plaid flannel shirt. His jeans have rips in the knees, and we’re just thankful he has finally retired the acid wash. And his feet sport a pair of work boots from Mike’s Work Wearhouse. Darrell (Doug and Dwayne,) always looks over at me while waiting for the light to turn green and gives me the “You wanna race?” look. His car makes a faint “putt, putt, putt, cough… wheeeeeeeze” sound as it pulls away from the green light. My little Hyundai Pete perks right up and speeds away from the Darrell – not in the I’m-racing-you-and-totally-kicking-your-ass way, but more in the your-car-smells-bad-and-I-don’t-want-to-inhale-your-fumes way. And me? I have that smug look on my face that says “I live in Toronto now.”
Percentage of men in cars driving by me wearing baseball caps in Toronto? 0%. For some reason, this makes me terribly happy. I take it as a sign of maturity on my part that I no longer find the ball cap attractive.
posted by nerdifer at 5:58 p.m.
1 Comments:
I don't even originate from a 'country town', I come from a slightly larger city, which is a small town compared to Toronto...but your 3 reasons are just a few of why I moved to the 'big city'...
When I was moving here I was told I'd either love it or hate it. And I loved it from the minute I stepped from my car. And for those people who don't love it...it's not the city it's you...you're not doing it right! And that upsets me, because this is a marvellous town, full of wonderful people and you're missing out! ;)
I'm an Ottawa girl at heart...but I LOVE TORONTO!!!
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