Socialization Stumble - Quack Quack

Only four months on Long Island now, my wife and I are still very much in the early stages of building a social life here.

Out of the toddler stage, most of our peers socialize through their children's *organized activities*: school, sports, dance, karate, scouts, etc.

But there are also several other outlets such as country clubs, yacht clubs, newcomer's clubs, mother's clubs, church and so on. In fact we went to a well-attended kickoff event of one such club last night (66 people) and met plenty of new faces.

However, I do have one small complaint which I'll preface with an excerpt from - South Shore Requiem:

Contrary to many opinion-heads, e.g. Forbes editor Rich Karlgaard, I maintain that one attribute of great-to-live-in regions is a dearth of colleges. Sure it may be impossible to find a $10 per hour responsible, EFL college student babysitter, but the plus side of being far from academia is not having to put up with all the never-done-anything, know-it-all cranks that dominate college-towns. Charlotte, where I lived for 11 months in 2004-5, was a similar case. I submit that the Queen City and the people there were so beautiful precisely because it wasn't ruined by colleges, a la Raleigh. (Hospitals bring a good share of cranks with them as well.)

Careers? Well, everyone in Cohasset/Hingham either works in finance or real estate. Seemingly, everyone was an analyst for a mutual fund company - or a consultant in the same field. I don't think I met a single doctor in 2.75 years; and I only met socially maybe 2-3 lawyers. Essentially, everyone nominally worked in the private sector. So I guess that's why the political BS, alluded to above, was kept to a bare minimum.

BUT, guess what...

I'VE ALREADY come across socially, in just the past couple of weeks, THREE DOCTORS living in my town.

What exactly is going on here? I thought I moved to a Wall Street town!

Of course, doctors are easy to keep at bay or mess with.

Last night I auto-gratified myself by grilling a couple of them, separately, over the pig flu quackccine. Hee hee.

My wife thinks, in general, that doctors are *boring*. But she's wrong.

I retorted, "What, are they any more boring than some of the empty-heads enslaved by large corporations?"

See also - Swine Flu Bogeyman - Up For Slaughter