Connected In The City

Two days ago I met a young lady who moved to Worcester in November
from Florida and I immediately asked her, "Why Worcester?". Her
response was insightful. (Oh, I promised that I won't use her legal
name, but for this article I'll call her Meredith.)

Meredith said that she works in the area for a big company that
"protects shit", and she was looking at apartments in Westborough,
Marlborough, Natick and Shrewsbury because some people she knows are
either from those towns or have family that live there currently. Ok,
I can understand moving to a City where you don't have any family,
friends or know much about the area, for that matter.

Meredith said she looked at those towns and found them to be, "Too
damn white" and continued to say "I'm accustomed to be around Blacks,
Spanish folks and Haitians who aren't afraid to share their background
with an inquisitive white girl."

Wow. Talk about a candid and fearless lady.

When she asked me how many years I had lived in Worcester, to which
the answer is 10-years, and what my impressions were of the City:
changing quickly and it scares the snot out of some folks that don't
want Worcester to become a metropolitan City.

We continued talking about various places to visit in Worcester to
learn about the City's history, restaurants, clubs and overall things
to do in the area, and then Meredith said that she had to, "get
connnected in the city to really make this my home", and "find out
what's the real deal with Worcester, because all I've heard about is
the crime, drugs and other bullshit!". "When folks talk about those
things, I take it with a grain of salt because that stuff goes on in
every city or town anywhere in the world."

Well, rest assured that Worcester has a new resident in Meredith that
is big on the City and wants to make it her home. Also, a word of
advice for anyone that meets a 'Meredith', don't feed her a bunch of
bullshit because she will hit you with the cross-eyed look that
instantaneously says "C'mon son, get the hell out of here with that
bullshit!".