Greetings from the land of high peaks and deep valleys on an island in the northeastern United States. Some of you know it as Manhattan.
I've been blessed with a bit of travel lately and this week I find myself in one of my favorite places in the country. I guess you're doing something right when you can combine a business trip with a birthday.
So here I am, high as a kite (thanks to a room on the fortieth floor) somewhere on 7th Avenue. We're about 5 blocks north of Times Square and 5 blocks south of Central Park. There are more people on this city block right now than there are in the county we live in. There are more people on this island than in our entire state.
There isn't much similar between the hollows of eastern Kentucky and the buildings of Manhattan, but there are a few things. First, almost anyone from different places in this country will say "those people talk funny" about both of us and we both will say "we don't talk funny". That's something to bond over once you figure out what the other is saying.
Second, we're both horizon limited. You can barely see the sky from street level in either place and if you want to see the horizon you've got to climb. In our case, up on the Pine ridge, in their case, up on the Empire State Building. Both take an effort.
Third, and this is what appeals to me, both places are populated by people who are proud of their homes and who do everything they can to help their neighbor. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone in the United States who'd rather live where they live than a New Yorker or an eastern Kentuckian.
It's hard to convince either of these homers anywhere else in the country is even livable compared to New York City or Pike (or Letcher or Floyd or...) county. I really admire New Yorkers for that, even if they're wrong.
The truth is there is no city like the one I'm in right now. It is THE big city. The big apple. Every other city in the country wants to be New York. Don't believe me? Just ask a New Yorker!
I'm not going to argue. Before social media overtook our collective minds, Americans were proud to live in a melting pot of races, religions, and creeds. New York City is the melting pot in vivid technicolor.
There's a reason those basspole governors of Florida and Texas don't send humans they don't believe are human to New York City. Why? Because New Yorkers wouldn't even notice.
They want your immigrants. It's a city of immigrants who have cobbled together the greatest city in the country and the business center of the entire world.
Immigrants and refugees become Americans in New York faster than any other place in the country. The last thing those governors in Florida and Texas want is success stories when it comes to playing politics with immigrants.
Which brings me to another thing most New Yorkers and east Kentuckians would agree on. Why the heck would anyone want to live in Florida or Texas?