I liked cities. I liked their busy sidewalks and their anonymity. Where I grew up in western Michigan, there was only a taste of the city life. Most everyone favored the dull suburbs. When I moved to Vermont for tenth grade, I thought I’d hate the rural atmosphere. But it actually grew on me, because it was more honest than the aggressively tended lawns of my youth. There were ragged meadows, with cows munching them. There were miles of pine forest, and the outline of the Green Mountains everywhere you looked. Still, I preferred the city. Especially a good, old one.
