Dirty South

Imagine yourself in a church of a religion you are not, in a part of town you don't frequent. You feel conspicuous, and utterly out of place. You don't know the songs, the mantras, the gestures... Your worried about your car. Are you supposed to park there?

You just follow along as much as you can, try to blend in and hope that you'll observe enough to "get it".

That's how I feel. I just moved from New York to the Deep South. The two places are pretty opposite. 

I am paranoid that my kids seem rude, with their sarcasm that has become casual in our family and their lack of proper formalities that the southern folks have had banged into their heads. Ma'am means, "what did you say?" and a formal "Mrs/Miss" and "Yes" and most times it's just like a verbal period at the end of a sentence. I wonder how they view me if I don't say it? Do I just say it all the time and feel like a jack cuz it's not natural for me? 

The people here run the gamut- from the uppity southern lady with the finer things who has big rings and a guarded, exclusive neighborhood, to the guy who lives in a shed that he made and burns mattresses in his front yard. (Yes I've seen both)

And as foreign as it is to a New Yorker born in the 80s, people here are prejudice- from both sides I'm told. Whites outwardly segregation-minded, and blacks verbally disrespectful to whites. 

The library is proud to be desegregated since the mid 70s, as their main web page states, and the Cracker Barrel has a framed disclaimer in the lobby, and as a foot note on all the menus, about how they accept and allow all people in their restaurant. 

This blows me away.

Now, I haven't witnessed or felt any of this first hand, but it is a unanimous account from the residents here. 

And as I overheard in a coffee shop, many people just don't want to change. This is what they know, this is what they like, and this is how it should stay. 

And, let me tell you, as a dietitian, it is very difficult to eat healthy in this town. I got a flyer from a place called  Bumpers that serves, for $4, a meal called: grilled cheese sandwich and chilli pie. A chili pie, from the ad, looks like Fritos with chilli and cheese on top. For only $4! I went into the wrong grocery store one day, and it is amazing how cheap you can eat, and how crappy the food is. This ghetto supermarket had wrinkled fruits and vegetables- weather because they don't turn over enough, or because that's all the clientele is able to pay for, I don't know. And kool aid, boxes of grits, and sugar cereal. And every store has pork chittlins. I still don't know what that is, but I don't like the looks of it. One man who provided a service at my houses said, "if it ain't fried, it ain't good."  He is on a diet now, per his doctor, and he suggested if you want to eat healthy, you gone have to cook it yourself.  

There are signs, I swear in any southern town noting that Bubba will will buy your junk, or sell you fire logs, or clean your pipes.

Everyone loves camouflage. (I actually do too) And man do they have a thick accent.

This all isn't meant to be negative, just honest. But the beauty of the south is that's there is no traffic, mild winters, very nice people, and a LOW cost of living. Bell peppers were 0.69/pound and that wasn't even on sale. Gas is a buck less than NY, and cigarettes, if you choose to hasten your death, are HALF the price. A $9 pack up north is $4 here. Maybe it's Bloomberg. 

They love beer and foot ball and everyone from Bubba in the shed with fire wood or Greg and Betty Sue in the housing association regulated neighborhood have an American made pick up truck. 

And I'm stuck here with no tv for the Super Bowl, what an atrocity!! I don't know what to do- there is a Rent-to-Own on every block so I thought about rentin' me a tele-vision for one day, but I don't know... 

But I got beer.

The nice things about the south are REAL nice, and the unfamiliar parts are REAL foreign. All in all it's ok.

I live in a beautiful home with a garbage disposal in the sink, in a beautiful neighborhood with neighbors who will probably be stopping by with their loafs. My house is one open floor with a big master closet. The weather is nice. The catfish is wonderful and there is Blue Bell ice cream.

It's ok.

Y'all.

North vs. South

Louisiana is different from New York. This is assumed from all the stereotypes, and this is quite obvious when you have lived in both places. And I think it is even more apparent in this city we're in because it is a Northern, rural LA town with a population of about 20K as compared to the southern LA city we lived in with a population of 100K. There is a website www.peopleofwalmart.com and it illustrates all the different creatures you may find at Walmarts across the country. And not to say that the creatures after 8pm and on the weekend in NY are not strange, but if you transplanted the creatures of the benign hours of the daylight here in this rural, northern bayou town, you might be scared. Everyone, and I mean everyone hunts. So 50% of the folks in Walmart are rockin' the camo. And not that trendy camo that we northerners like to use as an accent article of clothing - you may mistakenly weed whack them with their camo printed with life-like sticks, trees and leaves. They look like a walking piece of woods. So that's 50% of the people. This is a college town, so there is another 25% is composed of half young people wearing shorts (I don't know how youth can wear shorts at all times of the year and not be cold. Was I one of them?) and a category I'll call other which includes myself. My middle aged, child-toting, non-hunting ass is a minority here, I guess. Hunting is not too familiar for me, but I think I could surely like this sport for the pure fact that I get to eat the fruits of my labor. That is right up my alley! Every house has a pick up, an ATV in the back of the truck bed or near it, and a dead deer carcass either draped over the ATV in the back, or chopped up into deer sausage in their freezer or mine. (Yes I have fresh deer sausage in my freezer given to Tom by a co-working hunter waiting to be enjoyed :) Oh and everyone has a gun. So the 'don't mess with Texas' slogans extend to much of the south and definitely this actively hunting, red state.
And we all know the drawl. And since my kids have taken a liking to the Toy Story series of movies just before coming down here, they have adopted the drawl for fun, but they actually sound like the grew up here. I try to correct them - really its all Gabby, "not day-yoown, just DOWN, one syllable. Not they-air, say THERE". I guess we're doomed once she starts school.

It's different here from where I grew up, but it has lots of character and people like it here. They pride their live oaks like I pride my Hudson River. They drool over craw fish and dirty rice like I pine for Brooklyn pizza and Jewish bagels. I love it all and I love to take it all in and experience what is someone elses' normal. It is stimulating to walk through the Walmart - what is better than that! This is life.