AH, YES, BIG CITY LIFE

There was an interesting episode in my life a couple weeks ago.  It happened in San Diego, California   Not the largest city in the country, but larger than South Hadley, Massachusetts, where I grew up, or Holyoke, where I went to school and where my grandparents lived.  It is certainly bigger than Enfield, New Hampshire and even bigger than Enfield, Connecticut.  To put a finer point on it, it is even bigger than Springfield, Massachusetts which I think must be a city of about 1,000,000 by now.  I say all of this because big cities have some very interesting moments along the course of any given year.   I know because I have been around some of them along the course of my life.  Rome, Italy was the one that I was the closest to for four years.  Boston, Massachusetts is familiar to me; Los Angeles is a place that I know fairly well; I started by disliking San Francisco and a long association (six years) with that city didn't change my initial impression.  Paris, France I do not like because of the people, but the place, I like.  I much prefer Lyon and Grenoble in France and that might be because they are more than somewhat smaller than Paris.  The big difference though is the people.  I won't mention Manila, Tokyo and Hong Kong.  I was in Taiwan for three days once when I was younger and I have some very nice memories of of it.  One story of what happened to me there is heart warming and humorous all at the same time.  I'll have to remember it so that you can enjoy it too.
Of them all, as well as some that I have not named, San Diego, California is my total favorite.  
So, a little while back I was in San Diego and I followed my habit of picking up both alternative press newspapers.  I like them both. One is small and artsy (San Diego CITY BEAT) and the other (The  San Diego READER) is a lot more prosperous and runs about 150 pages on a weekly basis.  It is edgier, as you can see by the cover indicating a piece of investigative reporting.  I read them both every time I am in San Diego.  I always start with the City Beat because it is about a fifteen minute project.  Then I move on to the Reader and that can take as much a almost a week because of the crossword puzzle and other interesting nooks and crannies.  It also features one of the oldest and best investigative columnists I have ever read.  He has to be at least 90 years old by now, and he keeps on writing edgy, well researched, in your face columns.  So I try not to miss any of his writing.  
Back to my "big city" story.  
Turns out that a historical building in downtown San Diego had just been bought by a group that plans to remodel and refurbish it to suit its needs.  Turns out that it was a parachute factory early in its history.  When it became known that it had been sold and that it was going to be torn inside out, a cooperative art group of young and starving artists was able to get permission to have a one day graffiti art exhibit inside the building.  I thought that the idea was brilliant.  I thought that the buyers are marvelous to give people a chance to express themselves in such a challenging venue.  In fact, it was not just the artists who were expressing themselves.  We visitors were too.  We didn't just put our $5.00 on the table.  We walked around, met one another, told ourselves our level of appreciation and by our very present, made a statement about the meaning of the event.  I made the tour three times in the hour that I was there.  I made the dumb mistake of forgetting my camera at home.  I took pictures with my telephone but they did not succeed very well.  The introductory picture at the top of the page shows you what kind of art we saw that night.  There was not a single wall left untouched...even those what were not plastered.  They turned everything into an artifact.  It was great.
Three cheers for a series of initiatives that didn't let ceremony, rules and/or regulations stand in the way but facilitated a life event for the good of the community.  I can only hope that someday you can have a similar experience.