I was driving in Airdrie a few months ago and executed a somewhat assertive lane change.
It was safe and left plenty of room for the other vehicle, but two young men in their early twenties wearing flat brim snap backs (hats) decided to make a point by roaring past us leaning on their horn and extending the middle finger of courtesy to us as fellow motorists.
I found it extremely funny and started to laugh because it wasn’t the first time it has occurred since moving here. The guys in my car had a laugh and said they’ve found the same thing. We figure it’s Little City Syndrome.
Airdrie is growing at a rate of around ten percent a year and I sense there are two warring factions, let’s call them the Jets and the Sharks (West Side Story). There seem to be those who have been here for over ten years and hate that it’s getting busier and more like a big city, and then there seem to be those who wish it was much bigger.
(Then there are most of us who don’t really care one way or the other and aren’t cool enough to belong in a gang but are too boring to write about.)
Back to my story…
So the Jets wish it would go back to the way it was, which will never happen so they end up moving to a smaller city where they tell people they wish it was more like Airdrie, and the Sharks figure they’d better carve out territory so they have someplace to burst into song and dance about to the choreography and music of Robbins and Bernstein (respectively), though I may have fallen behind the times in what exactly it is that gangs do.
So the offended Sharks give us a piece of their mind on the road secretly hoping they’ll get “street cred” and we start laughing because it was hard not to.
I spent a few years in LA when I was young where mouthing off to random people on the road over nothing sometimes ended in people ducking bullets, so it did seem a little out of place here in that the offended party was fairly certain we weren’t packin, so to speak, and they could safely make their big move. As a child I don’t remember seeing a Police car with less than three officers in it and the number of cars stopping for coffee or a robbery was about the same. They had to back then, things were rough.
Some friends who used to live in Airdrie are moving back to town to help us with Venue and they have a bit of a history here with the dark side of the force (i.e. dealing etc) in their younger days and used to run with a rough crowd. What gets me out of bed in the morning is how their lives have turned around from being down with a bullet to wanting to help people out of the same mess they were in.
Bad is bad wherever you go, and tough is tough, but maybe it’s not all it’s cracked up to be?
But at least we’re in Alberta, Canada. There is still a strong undercurrent of decency and good will where neighbours look out for each other and people wish others well. Why try to be something that we’re not if we wouldn’t like it anyways?
We put some couches out on the lawn in LA that were stolen before we could get them to the dump. Gone. My friend fell of my bike and ran inside to get a bandaid. Bike? Gone.
So no, I’m not super worried about someone letting off a bit of steam here. Maybe they live with their mom still and aren’t getting along right now? I would be frustrated too:)
Fun aside, I’ll always believe in the best even when that’s not what I see and love wherever I am and do my best to make it better.
And Airdrie? Relax. You don’t have to prove anything, we like you just the way you are!
Now let me get my flat brim snap back (hat) on and climb into my (aging) off-white escalade to pick up the boys to chop some videos (for church:)
COREY KOPE 