Word: ruburban
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Newcomers may find local shopping a shock. The major mall is too far away to visit regularly, and ruburban stores, trying to attract both natives and newcomers, carry schizophrenic stock. The appliance-repair shop also sells running shoes; the wine selection at the liquor store shows promise, but the owner still recommends Riesling with meat loaf; the grocery displays bagels next to the pork chops, and one store may handle both hot tubs and pool tables...
...likes local living before he repairs the station wagon that hit the deer. A simple request to have the Sunday paper set aside at the variety store may bring on a village history about how things have always been done and will never, if God remains in ruburban Heaven, ever change...
Indigenous ruburbanites have developed interesting ways to remind migrants of their presence. Inner-city inhabitants carry ghetto-blaster radios to announce themselves, but ruburban teen-agers favor, as the weapon of aural aggression, the 1973 Pontiac Trans Am with full-throat custom muffler. Rubber is applied to Main Street far into the night, accompanied by rebel yells and the shattering of beer bottles. Newcomers create different problems for the police. Although such naughty amusements are passe in the suburbs, the police chief of Harvard, Ill., had to ask the host of a nude cocktail party to pull the shades...
Although Republicanism dominates in ruburbia, the struggle between natives and newcomers is not a truly political one. Like historic clashes on the frontier, ruburban standoffs often concern land. Once it was the Johnny-come-latelys who disfigured nature and tamed the wilds, but the case is now reversed. The environmentalists sweep into town from the cities, demanding that nothing change. Movements to create historic districts are started by ruburban newcomers who want codes to protect the small-town flavor that drew them there in the first place. But longtime residents proclaim their right to add vinyl siding and aluminum tool...
...issue was defeated by 110 votes. But the natives are worried. Selectman Charles Brown, whose son went to college on his pig earnings, says, "If it's pigs this time, will it be cows the next?" More likely it will be junked cars on lawns, a perennial ruburban sculpture form, at least as prevalent as the whitewashed iron jockeys in the suburban landscape...
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