Hand-me-downs

Redneck. Hilljack. Farm boy. Ignorant hick.

There are a number of things I've been called as a result of my rural upbringing.

Some are an affectionate reminder that I was raised in a geological and social environment that makes me a little different from people who grow up in more densely populated areas.

Others, clearly, are not so affectionate; simply hand-me-down stereotypes like any other sort of insensitivity.

But although these monikers can tell just as many negative things about the speaker as the subject, they function well to point out differences.

I disregarded these statements for a long time, since where I come from - a small town named Truxton outside a slightly less small town named Tully where I went to high school, sort of near Syracuse - I'm not all that rural.

I didn't grow up on a farm. There were no more than four animals in my house at any point in my life, and nothing other than birds and dogs.

Nonetheless, here in the city, I am often referred to as a farm boy. It probably has something to do with the borderline-filthy, all-black baseball cap I like to wear. I also have an unusual affinity for plaid and flannel.

I still wear the brown Wolverines my brother bought for me six years ago, a size too big so that I could grow into them. I still wear them because well-worn work boots identify the wearer with the working class. They're warm and comfy too, but they carry an image.

Although distance has grown between manual labor and me, as journalism has become the focus, the boots serve as a reminder of my roots, and the differences that lie between Tully and Buffalo.

City dwellers tend to have a similar pride.

For all the nasty things that are said about Buffalo, those who have chosen to stay, and many of those who didn't have the choice, love the town. In the same way that work boots reflect blue-collar values, a steel town upbringing reflects grit and the ability to persevere.

A Buffalonian might have a hard time relating to someone born and raised in San Diego, one of the fastest growing cities in the United States. After all, what has San Diego gone through? Aside from the '88 earthquake, that is.

Harsh winters have that effect on people, just like crime rates and other bad-press statistics. City folk, just like those of us from the sticks, have a need to identify themselves with specific types of hardship.

It must be proof of one's ability to survive.

I can change an alternator without too much trouble, and doing so gives a unique sense of adequacy.

Young men from The City, a nickname many from the five boroughs have an alarmingly egotistical tendency of using, might feel a similar sensation when walking through a rough neighborhood that a suburbanite would avoid.

New York City has a strange effect on its outlying towns. Everyone from a town within 100 miles of it wants to claim a New York upbringing. Not many people seem to want to identify with White Plains. Not when they can make someone from Upstate believe they've been hardened by The City's infamous harshness.

These stereotypes certainly don't define people entirely, but the 20-year-old from San Diego is going to be fundamentally different from the one from Tully.

My cousin Greg, from San Diego, went to the same high school as the members of Blink 182.

I went to the same high school as someone whose grandfather, 100 years ago, invented an antiquated version of the oil lamp.

Fundamental difference.

People wear their hometowns on their sleeves whether they're trying to or not.

I may be an English major and the nerdy arts editor of a college paper, but people still have something to say to me at parties, and it's got nothing to do with the quality of my writing.

"Mike Flatt, look at you. You're such a farm boy."