This is not a travel blog, but sometimes when traveling something comes up which is TUW-worthy. I’ve been out a bit this summer away from Rochester, and as expected I ran into quite a few “Buy Local” signs on stores, cars and road signs as I moved about. How am I supposed to take these? Are these explicitly telling me that, since I am not local, that I ought not shop there? If I adhere to Buying Local, I would have to keep my purchases confined to Perinton, right?
I also can’t tell you how many people I see walking their dogs both with no leash and with no plastic bags. I’ve seen dozens of people just let their dogs run wild and poop without the slightest bit of embarrassment or intention of doing anything about it. What is an appropriate response? If I approach folks who do this, no matter how I do it, I become the a-hole. Isn’t that right? But I gotta tell you, until I see people regularly taking care of little things like this, I am not under any delusion that more difficult challenges are going to get solved. And don’t think this is isolated to just the poor parts of Appalachia I visited, or the inner city – I see MORE of this behavior in the ritzy-ditzy places I’ve found myself in, in particular in the public parks over in Pittsford.
Have a lovely evening.
You don’t get it, WC., nor do the Canadians or Mexicans, or the Albanians (the people who live in the New York State Capital. First, when you go to either side of the Falls, you buy local beer and hide it from Customs. In the winter, you go to Cabo or Cancun, and drink Mexican beer. Nobody ever checks a case of Genesee on a plane, because a few cans explode.
In Mexico, you buy only enough marijuana you need locally, and do not hire any entire family of housekeepers and gardeners, nor do you sell any Mexicans any machinery made in Cleveland, which is in Ohio, in a different state and on a Great Lake that is not local. Most importantly, buy nothing from anybody from Quebec who is in Cancun.