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"For someone who seems to have made up his onscreem name from John Muir and some California trees while living in Connecticut, ragging other people about geographical attributes seems unseemly."

As my wife entered her 4th year with cancer and just after they told her it was metastatic and terminal, we visited the west coast and the Muir woods. She told me it was one of the most peaceful places she had ever been and she sensed a feeling of strength and permanence there that was missing from so mant aspects of her life with the disease. She asked me to spread her ashes there when the time came. I chose it as a screen name then. A few years later, on August 23, 2004 I followed through on her wishes.

Got an issue with that?

Whether they are New Yorkers, Texans, Californians or Parisians, I have never had much use for folks who had to draw on imaginary attributes of geography to make up for all too real deficits of personality..

Emphasis mine

. As my wife entered her 4th year with cancer and just after they told her it was metastatic and terminal, we visited the west coast and the Muir woods. She told me it was one of the most peaceful places she had ever been and she sensed a feeling of strength and permanence there that was missing from so mant aspects of her life with the disease. She asked me to spread her ashes there when the time came. I chose it as a screen name then. A few years later, on August 23, 2004 I followed through on her wishes.

Got an issue with that?

Certainly not. I too am a widower, and can emphathise for having lost a loved one. We always feel inadequate, and feel we could have done more. Whatever more is.

Having that as a known, it still seems unseemly to me, to attribute personality defects, to people who have a love of place, or country. Just as your wife felt a special connectedness to the redwoods, (and who could not?) others often connect with places also. I have a special place that I think of from our old family farm. A small creek and insignicant water fall. Thinking about it lowers my blood pressure 30 points. I often use it for that purpose.

These things are amalgamated into a larger picture, and result in "pride or love of place". Why is that a personality defect?

Besides bragging is a national trait of Texans, But then we have a lot to brag about. I have seen Connecticut and am therefore, able to understand not having a sense of "Pride or love of place". There is almost nothing to distinguish it from the rest of New England. It is ground to be covered on the way to Vermont skiing or Boston or Cape Cod. Somehow I just don't get shivers of pleasure, from the idea of visiting an Insurance Center. Yale is nice, but why visit, unless you attend or have a child there.