Quote:
Originally Posted by AviationGuy
It is sad. It's the same way here.
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For me, growing up, Asheville was
the big city because I grew up in a rotting trailer in a pasture. On the rare occasions I went to Asheville it seemed like a metropolis, and I suppose that made me sheltered when I was little. As an adult I know that Asheville may have seemed big but it wasn't and still isn't, although it offers more than many cities double or triple its size.
That being said, it's a city that makes a huge portion of its money from being a haven. Rich people and outdoorsy people, neither of which are a demographic you immediately associate with chaos and rampage, come here to play and spend money. Our reputation, no matter what's boiling under the surface -- and I have a job that shows me all manner of things boiling under the surface -- is as a place of peace.
That's why it so unnerved me to see clouds of tear gas rolling down the street in front of places where I've shopped and eaten, and taken pictures. That ad for Biltmore, with the tulips, showed up in the background of several pictures of protesters running from tear gas. People were sheltering in the art museum. The Asheville Police Department made nationwide headlines for attacking and demolishing a medical tent in the alley between Farm Burger and Salsa's Restaurant, both of which are places I've eaten. The windows of the Union clothing store and Urban Outfitters were shot out, while the windows of Horse and Hero and Hazel Twenty, all pictured here, were bashed out. I guess in big cities -- really big cities -- it's something you've seen before so it doesn't affect you as much, but to see it happen here for the first time in living memory... This is the second time this year that the world suddenly flipped on its axis and everything familiar suddenly turned alien. I didn't like it when all the gaps started suddenly showing up on the shelves at the grocery store, and when you saw aisles of Easter candy and decorations next to plundered aisles where the toilet paper used to be, and I didn't like it seeing clouds of tear gas sending their tendrils under the belly of that bronze pig in Pack Square.
This has been a very psychologically challenging year.