Re: Walking

Donna:
>> Why does everything have to be mean, snide and snarky?

Ellen:
> It's not so much being mean. It's more that whilst we're aware that tourists are helping our economy, it's annoying when there's a (literal)  five-mile queue of traffic ahead of you when you're driving home on a Friday evening and you're tired after a long week at work.

That's all tourists? Really? Wow. Here in little county of Lancaster
that's usually construction. There have been stretches where going
into 3rd gear has almost given me a nosebleed.


Ellen:
> Donna, you're just a better person than I am. :) The problem is that I have limited time.

Ellen, do you understand what a backhanded remark that is? I don't
think I'm better than anyone else--which was actually my point.

Please don't tell me about limited time. I have limited time, too. Try
working at a different location every day and having to plan your life
around where you'll be every day in terms of erranding. I might be a
substitute teacher, but I work full time, and I don't live a life of
leisure.

>I wish I had the time to stroll down streets. I simply don't.

Ordinarily, I don't either, but when I go somewhere, I do.

>However, when I'm walking with other people, we don't take up the entire width of the sidewalk. We don't all have to be next to each other as we walk. Isn't it common courtesy not to take up the entire sidewalk, but to move aside when someone approaches you?

Well of course, but *people* do that. The world isn't divided into
"people" and "tourists."

> That's when I get annoyed -- when I'm expected to wait or walk in the street because a group of three or four take up the entire width of the pavement because they're seemingly unwilling to separate from their group for three seconds.

It couldn't be that their concern is keeping up and not ending up
lost, could it? At least sometimes? I've found a phrase that is very
effective when that happens: "Excuse me please." It works with
"locals" who are blocking a street.

Ellen:
> Well, Ian did that at the Grand Canyon. I have a picture to prove it. But he wasn't the only one there doing it, and he didn't block anyone's path when he did it. :)

Clearly he wasn't on a city street.

> It sometimes seems to me that there are a number of people who honestly don't know how to walk in cities nor enter/exit public transporation. Common courtesy just doesn't seem that common nowadays.

That's all "tourists" then? When I lived in Boston, that happened a
lot (the transportation thing). Those were commuters, not tourists.

On the other hand, I remember a "tourist" family who were getting off
the T, and one child got distracted for three seconds and didn't
follow right away. The doors closed and the train took off before he
could disembark. That had to be one of the most chilling sights in my
life, a screaming mother running down the platform, trying to beat on
the doors of the train until it vanished into the tunnel. I still get
sick, thinking about it. Fortunately, someone got MTA security who
radioed the conductor about the situation while others reassured the
family. The official went with them to the next station to make sure
it was all right.

I don't always succeed, but I work hard at not dividing the world into
"us" and "them," I want to be a kinder person, and that's
incompatible with kindness.

I don't care about "nice" so much. In fact, a "nice" person would have
just not said anything, but I believe that silence=consent. I know
that I'm not being particularly "nice" right now, but I really am
tired of sucking it all up. I still think calling people "grockles" or
"speed bumps" or any other synonym for "nuisance" is kinda mean.

Donna



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You can call yourself whatever you want; it's what you do that matters.