“Celia,” I said to my girlfriend one morning, “I don’t think we’re in Brooklyn anymore.”
This was the first time in my life that I hadn’t been comfortably surrounded by blue peers. At college I’d always heard that Saratoga Springs was a conservative city, but I’d never realized how deeply red this city’s blood really is.
At work, most of the people I met as a reporter hated the Democratic mayor, and celebrated when she lost her bid for re-election to a Republican in November. There was a controversy at work when the Features department decided to run a lesbian couple’s wedding announcement. Sure enough, we were quickly flooded with complaints about it.
“How could you sully the wedding announcements page with this false union?” asked one anonymous caller.
All I could think about was the New York Times’ wedding announcement pages (after New York City adopted domestic partnerships in 2002). The paper had been glad to celebrate what was viewed in the city as a long-overdue right. Now, this caller—who wouldn’t even identify himself (or herself)—was making an argument straight from the 1950s.
The adjustment to life in this bastion of conservatism wasn’t just about politics. One day, going to lunch with a co-worker, I realized everyone around me was walking uncomfortably slowly. Many of my acquaintances could consume whole weekends doing just a few errands, and no one pinned the pedal to the metal when the traffic light turned green. People in this town walk around with their heads up, and stop to talk randomly to people they only vaguely know. Service at restaurants and shops is slow, and the unhurried pace of salesmen here is a point of pride for them.
“Better to take your time and do it right than risk making a mistake, I always say,” said a manager at a bookstore, who took about fifteen minutes to ring out a patron buying two books, as I stood behind her tapping my foot.
“No, it’s better to do it fast,” I thought. Such lackadaisical service would never have been tolerated at the sneaker store.
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