Why I Miss the South

In my walk around my North Shore neighborhood today, I marveled that in this time of pandemic, when people claim to be suffering from isolation, I noted—once again—that the ability to say hello or even nod when one person passes another, even on the opposite side of the street, seems to be an anathema.

I observed this lack of common civility when I moved here over thirty years ago and it still bewilders me.

Even after all these years, I still regret moving to Highland Park from Atlanta, Georgia, where civility is a prime motivator in roughly ninety percent of all interactions.  Being polite is taught young and often.  As an instructor at Georgia Tech, I recall speaking to a student who was sitting while I was standing, examining his paper.  He would not have that, considering it rude, so he quickly got up and stood alongside of me.  And who doesn’t love to be called “ma’am” as a matter of course.

One is never alone in the South.  At football games, at the grocery store, around the neighborhood, no one is a stranger.  Standing in line means engaging in conversation, and certainly you’d never pass anyone on a neighborhood jaunt without saying hello and sometimes stopping to pass the time of day.  I even used to greet the guards and the prisoner in work details, and they would all very politely return my greetings.

How I relished driving in Atlanta. No, not the awful traffic. I’m talking about around the neighborhood.  There was a light at Johnson’s Ferry—no ferry by the way—and sometimes people just weren’t paying attention.  It would turn green.  The first car wouldn’t move.  Did anyone beep?  No.  We waited.  And sometimes we waited through a whole other light cycle.  Would that happen here?  No, and you might get rear-ended if you don’t move fast enough.

What is it about the Chicago area that makes people think rudeness is a virtue?  So many here are under the impression that New Yorkers are unfriendly.  I’m from New York.  I’m trying to remember any rudeness I encountered.  Oh, yes, one time an old woman poked me with her umbrella because I wasn’t leaving the elevator at Saks fast enough.  There you have it.

(Note:  I am omitting the cat calls we all got from construction workers.  I think they spent more time watching women than working.)

I will admit my children didn’t like the South.  It could be that I ripped two of them away from their high school friends in Maryland.  If I had to do it again, which I obviously can’t, I wouldn’t have moved them. My older son and daughter went to school their first day in shorts.  Atlanta is hot.  They were allowed to stay for the day but informed that shorts were against the dress code.  There were also no windows in the high school so students wouldn’t get distracted.

My daughter especially found it hard to deal with the fashion statements the other girls were making, the clothes, the make up, the “Southern charm.”  As far as my younger son, a public school teacher advised me to get him into a private school as soon as possible because he was too bright for them to handle.

I sigh.  Yes, I suppose it was selfish of me to enjoy myself while my children were suffering with these adjustments.  But I had two wonderful sets of friends, one work, the other social. And there was the ACC to celebrate.  Georgia Tech football, basketball, what could be more fun?

When my husband got a job offer from Northwestern, I was horrified.  How could he remove me from paradise?  I told him, I’ll go if they double your salary.  Well, damn it, they did!

So here I am, stuck in the confines of the unfriendly North Shore.

Any benefits.  Well, okay, one.  At Georgia Tech, when they had a faculty gathering, they served cheese and crackers.  The first faculty affair at Northwestern, there were jumbo shrimp and liquor.

Amazingly enough, two of my children returned to the South, one to teach at Tech’s arch enemy University of Georgia, the other to work in Greenville, South Carolina.

Will I ever return?  I hope so. Some day.  In the meantime, I shall smile and say hello to keep in practice, no matter what the response or lack there of might be.