A Funny Thing Happened While Walking Through a Hick Town

Disclaimer: I in no means intend to be racist by talking about race, nor do I mean to offend anyone from Liberty who might happen upon this blog. These are merely my observations as I see them. The color of a person's skin does not mean they are good or bad; merely different than what I am used to.

On to the story:

In the three weeks I have been in Liberty, I have seen very few white people. Hardly any. Almost every face is black or Hispanic (mostly Hispanic) and every voice that answers the phone at local stores seems to be Hispanic as well. The only white girl my age I've seen the whole time, which came as quite a shock as she seemed so out of place, was coming out of Planned Parenthood. You have to dislike a town so small that you know everyone's business just because of what building they came out of.

So, when I was taking my usual walk the other day, intently walking up the hill as fast as I could because it was quite cold, I all of a sudden stopped. The window of the gym and tanning place was illuminated, and was a very odd sight. This is a place I pass by every day with a huge sign that says "TAN HERE!" and not much else. I looked in the window - there was a huge glass window and you could see several people on excercise machines inside - and every single one of them was white. There were eight people in there, and every one of them was white. I must have stood there for five minutes, peering in the window, thinking, "Are they really white, or am I just imagining this?"

After discerning that they were really white, and that I had stood and stared for a bit too long, I continued on my way home, amused and somewhat fascinated by this new discovery. So THAT'S where all the white people are in this town! They're all tanning! (Or working out, which must be another cultural difference in itself; perhaps the rest of the town feels they get enough excercise by navigating the hundred and one uphills that the town features and that they don't have to pay extra for the pleasure.)