We’re not in Kansas anymore

(OK, so if I’d ever lived in Kansas, I would have to be a very unhappy person, seeing as I probably would have had to like the Kansas Jayhawks, and that, my friends, would be a sign of the apocalypse. As a graduate of the University of Missouri, it’s pretty much a graduation requirement to hate KU. . . and I graduated with honors.)

Anyway, after that disclaimer about the title of this post, I get on to the actual point: I grew up in a small Midwestern town in rural Missouri and now live in a large southern city in the “belt buckle of the Bible belt,” as they like to say around here. I love Nashville, but sometimes, every so often, it becomes clear to me that this is certainly not the small town I grew up in. Case and point:

• I get made fun of for the way I say the word roof. Yes, I’m aware there are two o’s, and phonetically, that should make a difference. But we always said roof in a way that kind of sounds like the sound a dog makes. You know, ruff. It’s the way I say it. And it ain’t changing!

• Someone uses the word “hose pipe” in a sentence and no one laughs. Well, except for me. Because it’s not a joke. It’s slang particular to middle Tennessee for a garden hose.

• I’m forever explaining harvest season and that farmers go to work in the morning and work as long as they can. There’s no 8 hour days or clocking in. And at harvest time, you work and work and work until the crop is out. Then you keel over and sleep. People in more rural, ag areas of Tennessee might understand this, but they don’t here in Nashville.

• This is the response I get often: “Wait a minute, you didn’t have a football team at your high school? What did you do on Friday nights?” I understand that football is religion in the South. I have nothing against football (I just know next to nothing about it, but I don’t hate it)! But not all parts of the country love football like they do in the South. In the Midwest, we love us some basketball. We all think the movie Hoosiers is about our high school team. We know high school referees by name and yell at them at ball games. We’re the people who buy that March Madness package on cable so we can watch all the college basketball games possible. We also love baseball and can be quite fanatic about our team. My hatred for KU is seconded only by my hatred of the Cubs.

• The term “Meat and Three.” It’s basically a restaurant that serves good Southern cooking where you can get some sort of meat item (meatloaf, salisbury steak, fried chicken, chicken and dumplings) and varying numbers of sides, usually veggies cooked until all nutritional value is gone. (And they are delicious!) But at home, no one calls restaurants this. I’d never heard it until I moved here, but I must say, I love me a good meat and three.

• I walk fast. I want to get things accomplished quickly and efficiently. Sometimes I drive fast. In the South, though, we take things slow. It’ll get done when it gets done is the prevailing attitude. Sometimes, Midwestern me gets impatient. . . but it’s usually worth the wait and half the time, I need to take a deep breath and relax!

Have a good day all!