Being a transplant from New York City to a town in New England where apples and cows are a thriving industry, I can always sniff out other folks who have left behind the rat race.
The first giveaway is their mailbox. Unlike "country" folks, whose rusty, unmarked albatross is a badge of antiestablishment rebellion, ex-city folk paint their mailboxes with birds in flight or lifelike flowers straight out of Monet's garden. Country folks don't bother with a house number or name.
The expatriates' mailboxes have a house number and their names written in a fancy font. Some have cute signs that say "Happy Meadow Farm" or "Pine Tree Acres." At holiday time, these showpieces get draped in lush greenery and red velvet bows, while the locals barely shovel out their dented boxes from the avalanche created by passing plows.
Some mailboxes are constructed to look like doll-size versions of the owners' houses. These little beauties don't last, though, and after local Halloween pranksters or winters storms have rearranged their tiny shutters and hand-painted front doors, their remains are retired to the backyard to serve as birdfeeders.
Speaking of birdfeeders, do you know that they were invented by a city "feller" who had retired to the North Country? Folks used to throw some stale breadcrumbs for the birds, and some old ladies used to buy blocks of suet to hang in their trees to feed the wintering chickadees.
Suddenly, birdfeeders are a must have and crumbs on the ground are bad manners. There are birdfeeders with separate receptacles for different types of seeds, along with boutiques in the mall that peddle 18 styles of birdfeeders ranging from 34 to 59 bucks. An entire publishing division has sprouted up with bestsellers like "How to Attract Chickadees" and "Backyard Birds & You."
Country-born folks wouldn't be caught dead buying a $42 birdfeeder; they figure birds know how to fend for themselves pretty darn well—you don't see birds falling off trees, dropping from malnutrition.
You can always tell a city transplant by looking at their front door. Each season becomes a reason to showcase some seasonal wreath purchased at a local craft fair. In April, there's a wreath covered with silk daffodils and forsythia. September features grapevine swags with tiny Indian corn and silk autumn leaves. December's door is outfitted with a Christmas extravaganza complete with a 10-loop bow made from shiny, gold ribbon woven between small red balls and pine cones that have been frosted white.
Expatriates wash their cars every Saturday morning dressed in baseball caps, old boating sneakers, and well-worn Dockers in an evenly faded shade of khaki. Driving past these 2-bucket types, country people always enjoy a chuckle as they head out to their local diner for some eggs and home fries.
New to the country, city folks spend an awful lot of time at garden centers and nurseries. Sure enough, each April they arrive in droves with lists, diagrams, and torn out pages from Martha Stewart's Living magazine. It seems that some transplants also shop by catalog, and hundreds of UPS trucks clog local roads each March as boxes of flora arrive at their new homes and into the waiting arms of enthusiastic property owners.
After I washed my car in town, I headed home to hang up my pussy willow wreath on my door and await the UPS man. Ah, spring in the country.
Humorist and freelance scribe Joyce Faiola is a consultant for the hospitality industry and lives in Connecticut. Her e-mail is JLFaiola@Juno.com Cartoonist Bob Larsen is a professional artist in the Boston area.
Feeds