A Damn Yankee In King Cotton's Court
(Written in August 2001)
I’m what you would call a “Damn Yankee”. For those of you who don’t understand Southernese, a Damn Yankee is one who migrates South, especially from New York, recognizes heaven, and doesn’t move back. Most of them spend their first five years living in the Southland complaining bitterly about the humidity, the lack of good bagels, the need for a delicatessen equal to those up north and the fact that Southerners don’t know how to drive on snow and ice. Of course they seem to overlook the fact that this “skill” isn’t necessary because these road conditions exist only once every 5 or 6 years, and disappear in a day or two. In other words, who cares?
If snow and ice, and the ability to drive in it are so important, how come all the northern colleges fight like crazy to get away from the winter weather and be invited to the New Year’s Day bowl games that are all held in the South. Never heard of a “Yankee Bowl”. Northerners don’t even know that on New Year’s Day you are supposed to eat collard greens and black-eyed peas for good luck. Such an empty upbringing.
I’ve converted heart and soul and to me a good meal now is fried chicken, rice and gravy, fried okra, turnip greens cooked with fatback, corn meal muffins and a glass of iced tea, even in the winter. Please don’t tell my cardiologist this because it might explain why my cholesterol is so high. However, my three grown children, all University of Georgia Bulldogs, still refer to me as the family “Yankee”. I guess my 47 years of living in the South just don’t count enough with them. Well, at least their mother is a native Southerner, and also a UGA Bulldog. It isn’t easy for a Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket to live in a house with four bulldogs, but at least I have a real education. (I’ll hear from the kids about that one.)
I now live in Louisiana, the northernmost banana republic in the hemisphere, which in itself is another story. Living here you are presented with unusual problems, one of which was posed to me recently. It goes: If a man and a woman get married in Louisiana, move to Arkansas for 10 years, get a divorce, and both move back to Louisiana, are they still brother and sister? Hmmmmm.
While I know that my everyday language, after all these years, is peppered with words such as ya’ll and ma’am, my accent has changed very little. Either my speech pattern was already established when I came south to Atlanta or I am very stubborn. Take your pick. Whenever a true son or daughter of the south meets me and hears me speak, they always ask, “Where in the East are you from?” God forbid they should let the word North escape their lips. At least I don’t speak in Brooklynese.
Southerners love football. Yes, their hog-jowls, heritage and hunting dogs are important to them, but not like football. In the south football is a religion. All over the country professional and college football crowds the fall weekend, but below the Mason-Dixon Line Friday night is the Sabbath and the high school football stadium is the altar of their love and affection. From the Carolinas and Georgia, to Alabama and Louisiana*, and all the way to Texas, when the school year starts (or sometimes even before) all eyes turn to Friday night and the hunt for the coveted state championship, high school All-American listings, TV coverage and visitations from college scouts. This is aided by the fact that there isn’t any ice or snow to drive through and the worst we have to negotiate is a hurricane, which of course doesn’t stop the game even if there is an evacuation ordered due to the storm. Until you have been to a Friday night high school game in the south, you truly haven’t experienced football worship.
Southern high schools draw crowds for football games that their northern counterparts only dream of. Most of these secondary schools, even in small towns, have seating capacities of twenty to twenty-five thousand and fill every single seat. In Louisiana the state AAA football championship game is held in the Superdome in New Orleans and the casual observer would think that the NFL was playing the Super Bowl. Needless to say this follows on up into college games. The perfect example of this is Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, LA, home of Louisiana State University (LSU). The seating capacity of the football stadium is greater than the population of the city and on every football evening (they always play the games there at night) every seat is filled. For a member of the visiting team or an opposing fan the noise level of the LSU fans is a frightening thing the first time you hear it. It lives up to its “Death Valley” nickname. In Atlanta, home of Georgia Tech, the Tech vs. Univ. of Georgia freshman game at Grant Field, on Thanksgiving Day, used to sell out 50,000 seats, until the NCAA discontinued freshman teams. No longer is cotton king in the south. Football is.
To many a southerner, Gone With the Wind is more than just a book and movie, and Tara’s Theme is more than a piece of music. They are the living images and sounds of the War Between the States*. There are some in the south who believe that the present is only a lull in the fighting and next time the confederacy will win. But, we all have our nut cases.
I have always maintained that southerners have better work habits and more efficiency than office personnel up north. This I based upon my observations of the garment industry both in the south and in New York, the recognized garment center of the country. Thanks to 35 years of working in this field of manufacturing, merchandising and selling, which took me on a regular basis to the Big Apple, I feel I can speak with authority, without fear of contradiction on the subject. Also, for two years, midway through my career, my family and I lived (you will excuse the expression) in New Jersey and I commuted to Manhattan and the company offices.
People work in New York and live in New Jersey basically for two reasons. First, with some finagling, you can file state taxes in the Garden State rather than in the Empire State, which saves a ton of money. Secondly, you want to get out of the big city and move to the “country” where your children can have a normal life. But, your problems are also two fold. First, you are still surrounded by New Yorkers, and secondly, you now become a commuter. Not all commuters arrive each day from New Jersey, as there is also a great number coming from Connecticut and Long Island. The location of these former New York City commuters follows a very set pattern of emigration. Brooklynites tend to move to New Jersey, Manhattanites go to Connecticut and the New York State area just north of New Jersey, and Bronxites move to Long Island. I think this plan was set down when the Dutch bought Manhattan Island from the natives for $24 in beads.
Commuting from these locations is an adventure all unto itself and has a grave effect on the work habits and efficiency of those who make this daily trek. To a native New Yorker living on these fringes of the city, there is no such thing as a “bad commute”. Even those who leave their homes at 6:00AM to be at work by 9:00AM insist they have a “good commute”. There are people who live way out on Long Island and get up at 5:30AM to travel two to two and a half hours to their office. By doing so, they claim to get an opportunity to catch up on their reading, while on the bus or train, and have good, quiet time at the office to accomplish many tasks. Of course not much work is really done, as their buddies do the same and they all wind up in the coffee shop having breakfast, reading the morning paper and discussing last night’s ball game.
While my Amtrack train line was fairly dependable I couldn’t help but notice that some traveled in railroad cars without benefit of air conditioning or heating. These cars sometimes were so old that you could observe Indian arrows embedded on the outside.
Those who traveled by bus from these outer reaches would reach the city at the Port Authority Bus Terminal on Eighth Avenue, the garden spot of New York. From here they would walk to their offices, take another bus or avail themselves of the subway.
For those who drove into the city, a crawling, bumper-to-bumper, slow death of sorts awaited. Quite often there would be a time killing accident or tie-up at the tunnel pay booths. Backed-up tunnels and bridges are a must, for after all, Manhattan is an island. Driving into the garment district brings with it the pleasure of public parking lots, which have monthly parking rates greater than the average mortgage payment. For daily rates, it would be cheaper to buy the parking lot.
This is New York commuting. Ask anyone. They all have a “good commute.”
How does this effect work? That's easy. Many people arrive late, order for delivery their breakfast from the downstairs coffee shop (or at least coffee) and then spend the next half hour complaining about their trip into the city, followed by a fifteen minute discussion of the previous night’s activities. By now it is 10:00AM.
At 11:30AM it is time to start planning lunch, or leave early to do some absolutely necessary shopping before eating. In many instances shopping takes up so much time that it becomes necessary to bring lunch back to the office at 1:15PM, which shows concern for your company time.
At 3:00PM it’s time for an afternoon break and someone runs down to the coffee shop to pick up something cold to drink for everyone in the office. This is followed by leaving at 4:50PM, so you can catch the 5:10 train out of Penn Station. After all, there isn’t another one until 5:22, which will get you home much later. Of course falling asleep on the train home doesn’t help. I did one night and went all the way to Philadelphia.
Does this effect productivity? You better believe it. Does it compare to the southern garment office worker who arrives at 8:00AM, takes a 15 minute coffee break at 10:00, has a half hour for lunch, a short afternoon break and then doesn’t leave before 5:00PM? They don’t even come close. And all this without the ridiculous commute, which I figure gives the southerner an extra month a year at home.
Am I exaggerating? Well, maybe a little. But, I’m a Damn Yankee, who saw the true light and took the pledge. I just hope I never have to make a decision as to what I should do if there was ever another “War of Northern Aggression”.
* You will notice that Florida is not shown here. That is because it is not recognized as a true Southern state and in actuality is the sixth borough of New York.
** Southern schools never taught the term “Civil War”. The proper term was the War Between the States or the War of Northern Agression.
I’m what you would call a “Damn Yankee”. For those of you who don’t understand Southernese, a Damn Yankee is one who migrates South, especially from New York, recognizes heaven, and doesn’t move back. Most of them spend their first five years living in the Southland complaining bitterly about the humidity, the lack of good bagels, the need for a delicatessen equal to those up north and the fact that Southerners don’t know how to drive on snow and ice. Of course they seem to overlook the fact that this “skill” isn’t necessary because these road conditions exist only once every 5 or 6 years, and disappear in a day or two. In other words, who cares?
If snow and ice, and the ability to drive in it are so important, how come all the northern colleges fight like crazy to get away from the winter weather and be invited to the New Year’s Day bowl games that are all held in the South. Never heard of a “Yankee Bowl”. Northerners don’t even know that on New Year’s Day you are supposed to eat collard greens and black-eyed peas for good luck. Such an empty upbringing.
I’ve converted heart and soul and to me a good meal now is fried chicken, rice and gravy, fried okra, turnip greens cooked with fatback, corn meal muffins and a glass of iced tea, even in the winter. Please don’t tell my cardiologist this because it might explain why my cholesterol is so high. However, my three grown children, all University of Georgia Bulldogs, still refer to me as the family “Yankee”. I guess my 47 years of living in the South just don’t count enough with them. Well, at least their mother is a native Southerner, and also a UGA Bulldog. It isn’t easy for a Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket to live in a house with four bulldogs, but at least I have a real education. (I’ll hear from the kids about that one.)
I now live in Louisiana, the northernmost banana republic in the hemisphere, which in itself is another story. Living here you are presented with unusual problems, one of which was posed to me recently. It goes: If a man and a woman get married in Louisiana, move to Arkansas for 10 years, get a divorce, and both move back to Louisiana, are they still brother and sister? Hmmmmm.
While I know that my everyday language, after all these years, is peppered with words such as ya’ll and ma’am, my accent has changed very little. Either my speech pattern was already established when I came south to Atlanta or I am very stubborn. Take your pick. Whenever a true son or daughter of the south meets me and hears me speak, they always ask, “Where in the East are you from?” God forbid they should let the word North escape their lips. At least I don’t speak in Brooklynese.
Southerners love football. Yes, their hog-jowls, heritage and hunting dogs are important to them, but not like football. In the south football is a religion. All over the country professional and college football crowds the fall weekend, but below the Mason-Dixon Line Friday night is the Sabbath and the high school football stadium is the altar of their love and affection. From the Carolinas and Georgia, to Alabama and Louisiana*, and all the way to Texas, when the school year starts (or sometimes even before) all eyes turn to Friday night and the hunt for the coveted state championship, high school All-American listings, TV coverage and visitations from college scouts. This is aided by the fact that there isn’t any ice or snow to drive through and the worst we have to negotiate is a hurricane, which of course doesn’t stop the game even if there is an evacuation ordered due to the storm. Until you have been to a Friday night high school game in the south, you truly haven’t experienced football worship.
Southern high schools draw crowds for football games that their northern counterparts only dream of. Most of these secondary schools, even in small towns, have seating capacities of twenty to twenty-five thousand and fill every single seat. In Louisiana the state AAA football championship game is held in the Superdome in New Orleans and the casual observer would think that the NFL was playing the Super Bowl. Needless to say this follows on up into college games. The perfect example of this is Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, LA, home of Louisiana State University (LSU). The seating capacity of the football stadium is greater than the population of the city and on every football evening (they always play the games there at night) every seat is filled. For a member of the visiting team or an opposing fan the noise level of the LSU fans is a frightening thing the first time you hear it. It lives up to its “Death Valley” nickname. In Atlanta, home of Georgia Tech, the Tech vs. Univ. of Georgia freshman game at Grant Field, on Thanksgiving Day, used to sell out 50,000 seats, until the NCAA discontinued freshman teams. No longer is cotton king in the south. Football is.
To many a southerner, Gone With the Wind is more than just a book and movie, and Tara’s Theme is more than a piece of music. They are the living images and sounds of the War Between the States*. There are some in the south who believe that the present is only a lull in the fighting and next time the confederacy will win. But, we all have our nut cases.
I have always maintained that southerners have better work habits and more efficiency than office personnel up north. This I based upon my observations of the garment industry both in the south and in New York, the recognized garment center of the country. Thanks to 35 years of working in this field of manufacturing, merchandising and selling, which took me on a regular basis to the Big Apple, I feel I can speak with authority, without fear of contradiction on the subject. Also, for two years, midway through my career, my family and I lived (you will excuse the expression) in New Jersey and I commuted to Manhattan and the company offices.
People work in New York and live in New Jersey basically for two reasons. First, with some finagling, you can file state taxes in the Garden State rather than in the Empire State, which saves a ton of money. Secondly, you want to get out of the big city and move to the “country” where your children can have a normal life. But, your problems are also two fold. First, you are still surrounded by New Yorkers, and secondly, you now become a commuter. Not all commuters arrive each day from New Jersey, as there is also a great number coming from Connecticut and Long Island. The location of these former New York City commuters follows a very set pattern of emigration. Brooklynites tend to move to New Jersey, Manhattanites go to Connecticut and the New York State area just north of New Jersey, and Bronxites move to Long Island. I think this plan was set down when the Dutch bought Manhattan Island from the natives for $24 in beads.
Commuting from these locations is an adventure all unto itself and has a grave effect on the work habits and efficiency of those who make this daily trek. To a native New Yorker living on these fringes of the city, there is no such thing as a “bad commute”. Even those who leave their homes at 6:00AM to be at work by 9:00AM insist they have a “good commute”. There are people who live way out on Long Island and get up at 5:30AM to travel two to two and a half hours to their office. By doing so, they claim to get an opportunity to catch up on their reading, while on the bus or train, and have good, quiet time at the office to accomplish many tasks. Of course not much work is really done, as their buddies do the same and they all wind up in the coffee shop having breakfast, reading the morning paper and discussing last night’s ball game.
While my Amtrack train line was fairly dependable I couldn’t help but notice that some traveled in railroad cars without benefit of air conditioning or heating. These cars sometimes were so old that you could observe Indian arrows embedded on the outside.
Those who traveled by bus from these outer reaches would reach the city at the Port Authority Bus Terminal on Eighth Avenue, the garden spot of New York. From here they would walk to their offices, take another bus or avail themselves of the subway.
For those who drove into the city, a crawling, bumper-to-bumper, slow death of sorts awaited. Quite often there would be a time killing accident or tie-up at the tunnel pay booths. Backed-up tunnels and bridges are a must, for after all, Manhattan is an island. Driving into the garment district brings with it the pleasure of public parking lots, which have monthly parking rates greater than the average mortgage payment. For daily rates, it would be cheaper to buy the parking lot.
This is New York commuting. Ask anyone. They all have a “good commute.”
How does this effect work? That's easy. Many people arrive late, order for delivery their breakfast from the downstairs coffee shop (or at least coffee) and then spend the next half hour complaining about their trip into the city, followed by a fifteen minute discussion of the previous night’s activities. By now it is 10:00AM.
At 11:30AM it is time to start planning lunch, or leave early to do some absolutely necessary shopping before eating. In many instances shopping takes up so much time that it becomes necessary to bring lunch back to the office at 1:15PM, which shows concern for your company time.
At 3:00PM it’s time for an afternoon break and someone runs down to the coffee shop to pick up something cold to drink for everyone in the office. This is followed by leaving at 4:50PM, so you can catch the 5:10 train out of Penn Station. After all, there isn’t another one until 5:22, which will get you home much later. Of course falling asleep on the train home doesn’t help. I did one night and went all the way to Philadelphia.
Does this effect productivity? You better believe it. Does it compare to the southern garment office worker who arrives at 8:00AM, takes a 15 minute coffee break at 10:00, has a half hour for lunch, a short afternoon break and then doesn’t leave before 5:00PM? They don’t even come close. And all this without the ridiculous commute, which I figure gives the southerner an extra month a year at home.
Am I exaggerating? Well, maybe a little. But, I’m a Damn Yankee, who saw the true light and took the pledge. I just hope I never have to make a decision as to what I should do if there was ever another “War of Northern Aggression”.
* You will notice that Florida is not shown here. That is because it is not recognized as a true Southern state and in actuality is the sixth borough of New York.
** Southern schools never taught the term “Civil War”. The proper term was the War Between the States or the War of Northern Agression.
posted by Sam Schoolsky | 1:36 PM
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