Published: November 04, 2009 11:29 pm      

KEPPELER: When do you become ‘from around here?’

It’s funny how things line up sometimes.

Recently, a story was reported about another Western New York municipality, which is refusing to allow rezoning for the construction of 43 affordable apartments for senior citizens.

Well, there are lots of reasons to prevent rezoning, many of them valid. What was it in this case, you ask?

The simple fact that many of the seniors wouldn’t be from there.

In fact, town officials sent the nonprofit group looking to build the apartments a letter asking for the (original) ZIP codes of those in a similar residence it built.

“We were hoping it would be for our own residents and not a lot of other people,” a town councilwoman told The Buffalo News.

Some people are calling the town’s actions quite, well, snobby. Some people are calling them racist. And, frankly, I think it’s a bit of both.

But mostly, I think it’s just very, very short-sighted.

A touch over 12 years ago today, I started my first daily journalism job at another Western New York newspaper.

At the time, I was a quiet, shy kid barely five months out of college. I’d just moved away from the county in which I’d grown up and gone to college, to an area and a city — albeit a small city — where I knew absolutely no one, for the job.

My co-workers were fantastic and did their best to make me feel welcome, as did any number of other people. Still, it was an adjustment.

Not very long into my tenure there, I attended a local group’s dinner to kick off its annual fundraising campaign. I sat in my assigned place, put my notebook down by my plate and looked hopefully around for a familiar face. Nope.

Another women, about 10-20 years my senior, sat down next to me, smiled and asked if I was from the paper. Pleased to meet someone friendly, I allowed that I was, and introduced myself.

Then she asked, “And where are you from?”

I got the distinct impression that she didn’t mean, where was I living then. I told her that I’d grown up in Franklinville, a small town in Cattaraugus County, and graduated from St. Bonaventure University.

Her whole demeanor changed. She raised her eyebrows and sniffed, then turned to the women sitting on her other side.

“Leave it to (newspaper’s name) to hire someone who isn’t from around here,” she said, pointedly.

Ouch. I slunk down in my seat, too flabbergasted — and yes, hurt — to come up with a comeback. I spent the rest of the event in silence. She ignored me.

Most of the people I dealt with in that city weren’t like that at all. But I’ve never forgotten that incident, and never forgotten the punched-in-the-stomach feeling it gave me.

The ironic part? Everywhere I’ve worked, everywhere I’ve lived — Franklinville, Olean, Batavia, Le Roy, Lewiston, North Tonawanda, the Town of Tonawanda — I’ve tried to become a part of the community. I see the sites. I shop at the stores. I learn the history and the geography and the stories.

Given time, the senior citizens that the aforementioned town are so worried about would almost certainly do the same: volunteer for local charities, shop at local stores, maybe work at local businesses.

At what point, exactly, does someone become “from around here?” At what point does someone become “our own?”

I now live in the Town of Tonawanda. My husband and I own a house on the street where he grew up. My children, when they left the hospital where they were born, came home to that house. My older son attends a local school.

And I have no intention of leaving.

I didn’t grow up in the Tonawandas. I may not “get” the exact significance of the TNT game, or know where there used to be a giant whale just off the 290 (my husband recently enlightened me about that long-gone landmark), or recognize the name of the town supervisor from 1985.

But I’ll learn.

Someday, hopefully, my kids will grow up and find jobs and stay in this area. Maybe they won’t. And maybe someday, one of my sons will find himself in a new county or a new state, working at a new job, looking around for a familiar face.

And I hope he doesn’t get, “You’re not from around here, are you?”

Jill Keppeler is a page designer

for the Tonawanda News.

She can be reached at jill.keppeler@tonawanda-news.com.