Ask for a bagel in Georgia, and they`ll bring out a little hound dog. Order a pop at an Alabama restaurant, and the waitress might introduce you to someone`s grandpa instead of bringing you a cola.
So you think Yankees and Southerners speak the same language? Not by a long shot.
I was born and raised in Montgomery, Ala., and one of the biggest shocks of my early life was a trip to Massachusetts, my first venture above the Mason-Dixon Line.
The first day there, I called a friend, a Yankee I had met at school.
I asked if my friend was there, and her mother said, ”No.”
”Do you know when she`ll be back?” I inquired.
”No.”
I was stung by this curt reply, this display of poor manners and upbringing. I found out that other Yankees were just as rude.
In the South, the mother would have said, ”Well, I see her jacket on the porch swing, so she couldn`t have gone far, probably to Coreen`s house, which is just down the road, or maybe she walked over to Aunt Nell`s-she`s painting the banners for the family reunion, orange and blue this year. You know Nell`s boys went to Auburn. Just come on over, honey, I`ve got a pecan pie in the oven. . . .”
A Yankee visiting the South needs to understand these differences. Sure, you can see the moss on the oaks, the antebellum houses, the river boats and horse-drawn carriages without ever talking to a Southerner.
But you will miss the best part of a trip to the South: conversation. Southerners relish verbal exchange, processing and dispensing information in as imaginative and entertaining a manner as possible.
In the South, we like details, imagery, metaphors, similes. Southerners are not literal thinkers or speakers.
Why say, ”He`s busy,” when you can say, ”He`s running around like a chicken with its head cut off.” It`s a bit graphic, certainly, but far more interesting.
During a recent trip to Beaufort, S.C., I had numerous chances to watch missed connections between Yankees and Southerners.
In a bookstore near the waterfront, I had bought a leather-bound book by Faulkner (at Southern newsstands, Faulkner is considered as current as this week`s Time magazine) and was standing at the cash register chatting with a Beaufort native. We had gone through the preliminaries of weather and local events when she leaned forward and said in a low voice and with a
conspiratorial air, ”Guess who`s in town?”
My Southern curiosity leapt to the forefront of my brain, and I leaned forward, sensing this would be interesting.
But before she could say the name, a Yankee burst through the door, and demanded a road map.
”Does this map show Hilton Head?” she blurted. ”Beaufort
(mispronounced as bo-fort instead of bu-fort as in bugle) is so boring.”
As the door banged behind the intruder, the Beaufort resident leaned forward again. ”Barbra Streisand.”
She proceeded to tell me the details: that Streisand is tiny, blond, really blond, almost platinum; the address where the actress was staying; the restaurant where she ate frequently, and the time she usually ate; and that she liked a certain bar, staying mnights until the wee hours as friendly and polite as you please.
She told me the places where Streisand was filming the movie ”Prince of Tides,” based on the book by Beaufort native Pat Conroy, and explained the best ways to watch the filming. This information was confirmed 15 minutes later by a sales clerk at a dress shop.
I thought what a shame the Yankee had missed this story. If she hadn`t been in such a hurry, she could have gone home and told her friends that she had met Barbra Streisand and watched her make a movie.
