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Different Personalities of Different Cities and Towns and People, Experience the Culture
I love to travel around the U.S. I have traveled for many years before I got sick. But, I am a different kind of traveler, I want to know about the cities' people. All cities or towns have a personality. Sometimes it is really funny, this the only way to learn about this wonderful world, starting right here in America, is to visit the locals. Where they are and what they do.
All my family comes from New York, they arrived centuries ago, like everyone else, on Ellis Island. It is too intense for me to be in the city itself, but my relatives live in Long Island. New York was always divided by religious groups, and the city has a culture of all these groups which live in different Neighborhoods. The saying in New York is if you want to be safe you need to live high up, if you live low that is were you are unsafe.
A surfers paradise, I am going to give you some examples, I come from Newport Beach, California. I was very sheltered and really never left Orange County much. I would some times go to San Diego, which is a boater' s paradise, and that is the local thing, they love their boats and hang out at the harbor. Newport Beach is the most expensive land, per square foot, in the world. It is very pertinence, and everyone has a BMW, Mercedes, Corvette, or a Rolls. But, I loved living there and I raised my family in Orange County. My children still live there and will never leave. They call me a gypsy...
Really, when I first started to travel with my awesome carl, by car, I covered all or most of the western states, as a writer I wanted to get to know people, what they thought and how they lived. I was shocked, at first, that most people drove old cars. Strange how something like that can surprise you, but where I came from, everyone got a new fancy car every few years. And, they were always clean and never had a speck of dust on them. I thought the whole world lived the same way, then I took off on my life lessons. Each city and town has a personality, a "something special". If you love it you stay for awhile, if not you move on.
Now California is divided in three different sections, actually more, but we will start with three, their is Southern California, the Beach Boys. Central, where the farmers live, and Northern, San Francisco, this place is busy and laid back at the same time. It feels more like New York, but different in the since that it is a place that has a huge population of a guy culture, and everyone is successful. These folks are all health conscious and aware of green issues. Many people work in the computer industry, in and around San Francisco. So that's California in a nut shell so you can imagine the culture shock when I moved up in the Rockie mountains of Cripple Creek Colorado.
I always spend times in sedona Arizona, that is where my inspiration for a new book would come to life. It is a Native American sacred burial ground. It is full of spirit in Sedona and is an art, vacation and to put it simply, the most beautiful place I have ever been to. I have been going to Sedona now since the 80's, furthermore it has become too busy, the world has finally discovered it and now I don't enjoy it as much. It is only a few hours from the Grand Canyon and an hour from Flagstaff, Arizona.
Boston
I moved to Boston, MA. for business and lived there about one year. This city was for me like a fish out of water, I felt like I landed on a strange planet far from our own galaxy. I moved to Wellesly Hills Massachusetts, about fifteen minutes west of Boston. As conservative the Bostonians are, they change when they get behind a wheel of a car, they go crazy, I thought that must be their, "wild side". When you would try to merge off the freeway to enter the city, it's every man for himself. Talk about a battering ram...I got to my office, looked out the window and my car was gone, yes that fast. Boston, during the time I was there, in the very early 80's, was the car theft capital of the U.S.
Boston's thing is, what college did you graduate from. This town cares about education, but in a very smug way. Also, they relate to people that come from old money. Us folks that show up, maybe some rich people from Hollywood, they have a dislike for new money. But remember, Boston is where our founding fathers are from and the town is so full of history. Walking down the cobble stone street is simply an awesome experience.
I received a great job offer to manage a Casino in Cripple Creek, at the time I was working for Disneyland. I never heard of Cripple Creek, I came out to Colorado in 1992 to have my interview. From Denver we drove on the freeway to Colorado Springs, about an hour drive. Then we took a road called highway 24 and headed straight up the Pikes Peak Mountain. Cripple Creek is 10,000 feet, and I am from sea level. The view was breath taking, I never saw anything like it. The town was an original gold mining town and built in the late 1800, it once had more population, at that time, then Denver. It was planned to be the Capital of Colorado.
In 1897 the town burnt down, all the people started to live in tents, millions of tents everywhere. They rebuilt the town, and it was famous for gold miners, donkey's, gambling and houses of prostitutes. Now the locals believe the ghost from those days are hunting the casinos. Of course, I moved there and lived there for 11 years. I made great money and met people from all over the world. The town is located one small main street lined with casino's, all dirt roads, and I showed up with a BMW. I had NO idea that you could not drive in the snow because of rear wheels verses front wheel, where I come from, I was only in the snow to ski...There is so much to tell about Cripple Creek and it's history, but for now this is a teaser...
Finally, to finish my article, I have to talk about the Southwest, Tao's, New Mexico. Right off the main freeway is Santa Fe, to me it is very commercial in the since that people pop in to town right from the freeway and thank they are in the wild west. There is only small touch of what the culture really is. Yes, it does give enough, but once you drive to Santa Fe and go on a journey through some mountain passes you start to follow the Rio Grand River, when you come to the final pass you are high and you can see the River and Tao's off into the distance and it just takes your breath away. I went their once for a vacation, bought a store, and moved there. That was it for me, I felt like I found home.
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However, you really never know about a place until you live with the people. First I loved the Native Americans and became part of their lives. The chief came into my store all the time to tell me stories, his name was Jimmy, and he was so old with his braided and beaded with feather in his hair, his hair was so thin. He loved to share and invited me to my first sweat lodge. Nevertheless, it was a racial town, and I never knew anything about this until I experienced it. The Spanish runs the town of Tao's, they own everything and they never sell, it stays in the family...you can lease and once you spend a lot of money fixing things up, they make you so miserable, so you will leave. The Spanish hate the Indians, and the Indians dislike the Spanish. Most of this goes back hundreds of years. Yet, the Spanish dislike white folk and I never had one person that was Spanish come into my store.
The Tao's Native Americans, the pueblo is close to the center of the main street in Taos, and the experiences I had I could never write about them, there are just to many stories. But, the sacred mountain is on the pueblo land and only the natives are allow on this mountain, never in history, has a white man ever stepped on this sacred ground. They also, believe that UFO comes from the inside of the center of the mountain where there is a lake. I met so many people in Tao's that are still my friends today. Tao's is the real southwest, it is still the same as hundreds of years ago. I could write about Tao's for hours but, I am sure you are getting tired of my long article, therefore I must force myself to stop here. Love & Light Darlene
The copyright to this article is owned by Darlene Sabella. Permission to republish this article in print or online must be granted by the author in writing. (you can, however, freely use the opening introduction and photo with a link to the article here on My Smashing Magazine to read the remainder of the article.)
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