Three years ago this Labor Day weekend, we moved the bulk of our household into our current home.
It was not the first time we had stayed in the house. That experience was a couple of months before, soon after my husband bought the house, when we “camped” out in the house.
Yes, I said my husband bought the house. I never saw it except in pictures before it was ours. Yes, I am a little crazy.
My first in person impression was that weekend.
It was the fourth of July. We arrived around 3 a.m. I had followed my husband in his car with our dogs for the 500 plus mile trip with our daughter in my car. It was a long trip.
It was too dark to see much of the outside when we arrived. Inside, it was a nice ranch with laminate floors and a new kitchen with oak cabinets and shiny brass throughout the house (I’ll change out the brass fixtures one day).
After a quick tour, we unloaded the essentials, inflated the air bed and fell asleep in the extreme darkness of our new “neighborhood.”
I awoke to the sound of a rooster crowing the next morning. Then, as I lay there on the edge of the air mattress, I thought I heard the sound of (*gasp*) goats. (I do not like goats. Childhood trauma…). The sound of goats got me out of bed to look out our bedroom window.
As soon as I pulled the curtain back, I saw one of the largest Confederate flags I had ever seen. It was on a pole, just below the American Flag, right in front of my window in our neighbor’s yard. Yes, indeed I was in the South.
I woke my husband, letting my daughter sleep, by shaking him and asking, “What have you gotten us into? Where is this place?” Of course I knew where it was geographically, I meant culturally.
Later that morning, a neighbor from down the road stopped by as we were unloading more suitcases. He worked with my husband (actually, my husband was his boss at that time) and had been the one to tell my husband he should take a look at the house when we looking for a place. He was very friendly and invited us to a cookout at his house later in the day.
Not long after he left, the neighbor from next door stopped by to meet us (yes, the one with the flag). He introduced himself, told us about his family, our property, the neighbors, and well, you get the idea.
He was the first person that called us “Yankees.” He also said it was okay, because he had a “mixed family”. . . his daughter-in-law was from New England.
Turns out, his Northern daughter-in-law lived just behind his house, on the mini-farm with a pond, ducks, a rooster, and goats that I could see from our other bedroom window and our deck.
They were having a barbecue later that evening at his son’s mini-farm, and our new neighbor invited us. We had to decline because of our previous invitation.
By the end of the day, I talked more to our neighbors than I had in seven years at our “Northern” house.
Three years later, I still find that it is very true – more people are more friendly and welcoming in the South. While it is a generalization about people in a given region, the term Southern Hospitality comes from a real place and is not just hype.
It does seem that southerners can include a stranger in their family within minutes. LOL
They are a friendly people.
So true!
I have discovered that the term “Yankee” is not usually a term of endearment. However, even their put downs are done with such politeness that it is often hard to tell when you have been slammed:)