I’m a yankee. My wife reminds me of this on a regular basis. When we’re out with friends or visiting extended family in the Texas Hill Country it’s an awkward source of embarrassment for my in-laws. My father-in-law, the Texas tobacco lobbyist, went to his grave with the sad reality that his daughter married someone from the same state as Ted Kennedy.
And it seems I can’t escape, even in the clinic.
I was on the phone recently with a mother upset after a run in with a less-than-cordial pharmacist. In a fit of exasperation this mother declared in heavy Mississippi accent, “Dr. V, I believe that man is a yankee!” I didn’t know what to say. It was after hours and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I was wearing a well-weathered Red Sox cap. A lot like my cap, fifteen years in Texas had worn my Boston accent to something barely recognizable. I tried to commiserate but really didn’t know what to say. I was verklempt.
I was again reminded of my alien status during a recent horse drawn carriage tour of a plantation in Charleston, SC. At the outset of the tour the carriage driver asked where everybody was from. With the exception of some token Europeans, all claimed citizenship below the Mason Dixon line. The carriage demographics apparently gave the driver license to deliver a healthy, family style serving of history – Southern style (all along it had been my understanding that the Civil War was over). While I enjoyed the tour, in the end my feelings for the old South failed to leave me misty.
And so it goes, at home, in the clinic or on the plantation, I’m just a stranger in a foreign land.
Originally posted on Parenting Solved in 2008.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I hope there’s not a limit on comments because I just commented on your Mayo post, but your Yankee story reminded me of a story. When my husband and I were newly married, I moved from my hometown of Minot, N.D. to Jacksonville, where he served on an aircraft carrier. Two words: culture shock. I kept hearing Yankee this and Yankee that and I finally asked some guy in a coffee shop, “What’s up with all this Yankee stuff anyway?”
He looked at me and said, “Sugar, where you from?”
I told him.
He shook his head and said “Honey, you ain’t either one.”
Ouch. So what’s worse–being a Yankee, or being disqualified from it?
Yes. The hard reality is that you’re always a Yankee … at least according to my wife. I often refer to myself as a ‘recovering Yankee’. Self-deprecation seems to do the trick in social circumstances. Thanks for commenting, Jackie.
LMAO! I grew up in Montana.. and have lived in Texas since 2005! I’ve NEVER been called a Yankee! Just a Texan that got here as fast as I could! Guess.. it’s all attitude! Now, don’t be tellin’ folk’s how nice it is down here.. the perfect weather ten months out of the year.. and two months of heat.. where we all hibernate.. when not out at the Gulf fishing or soaking in rays!
That, along with the BBQ, will be our little secret….