Knitting in Subways with Boys

I love knitting in public. I love when older women look at you and make you feel like you're apart of a special society. I love when perfect strangers (usually older men who's mothers used to knit for them) sit down next to you and ask you what you're making and if its hard. Today a man asked me if I know of any male knitters. We had a nice conversation about my socks and my Local Yarn Store's collection of men who knit. Just before this past Christmas, I was knitting my father-in-law a luscious baby alpaca scarf when two gangstas got on the train and sat across from me. They struck up a conversation and asked the usual: what are you making, how long have you been knitting, etc. They started discussing how nice it would be to receive a handmade present and then proceeded to totally change topics and discuss the last time they were in prison... ;-)

I find knitting on the trains to be more relaxing than knitting at home on my couch. When I'm home, I always feel like there's something else I should be doing, but on the train I'm just waiting to get off.
I love the people I meet through knitting. My club at Roosevelt University, RU Stitch 'n Bitch, especially has allowed me to meet and get to know some really unique and awesome individuals.
Many women claim they're afraid to knit in public. The feminist movements have really done a number on the general view of knitting. I'm as much a feminist as the next 20-something female college student, but when I knit, I feel so in touch with my ancestors, and early settlers who had to knit to survive. Knitting is such an ancient art that grew and moved through the generations to become what it is today. We may not need to knit to survive, but we also don't need television to survive. We don't need organized sports to survive. We don't need millions of things in this world to survive, but we have them and do them because we enjoy them.

So, to those (especially that stupid boy in the lounge a few weeks ago) who think knitting is for old ladies and subservient women, in the words of my 4-year-old niece, you can HOOK IT! ;-)