You can take the boy out of Alabama…
April 10, 2005
I’ve been a resident of Baltimore for a week now, and I’m beginning to pick up on some of the subtleties of life above below, but just barely, the Mason-Dixon line.
1. Hurry up. In the South, people make time for each other. Just in a general sense—whether you know one another or not, whether they can do anything for you or not. I’m really fortunate that at my new job, my coworkers are both astoundingly bright and graciously patient. However, in the general flow of life, people just don’t have time to deal with you. Before I moved to Maryland, I didn’t realize that anyone ever really pushed that button in the middle of the steering wheel that makes the obnoxious noise. Here it is as common as a cough. Unloading your shopping cart, merging onto the freeway, walking across the street, no matter what you’re doing, the general consensus is that you could probably be doing it faster.
2. Busy ≠Rude. Around here, it seems, if you don’t stop for a stranger asking directions (something I’ve not yet been brave enough to do), if you don’t let someone merge onto the road in front of you, if you let doors slam behind you or turn a blind eye to the lady running for the elevator, it’s no big deal. This is a foreign concept to me, because the aforementioned behavior is considered downright criminal in the South. Yet, here I constantly find myself having to practically beg people to let me hold the door open for them.
3. I live next door to the Shock Trauma center. This is not so much a cultural issue in the North, but it is a fact of life that I was not aware of prior to signing the lease on my apartment. I am almost as used to the sound of ambulances racing through the streets as I was of the trains running through Bay Minette. Sirens no longer wake me at night.
4. Marylanders are worse than Southern Baptists when it comes to buying alcohol. Despite the existence of a few archaic dry counties scattered throughout the South, buying beer is considered about as big of a deal as buying chewing gum. Here, though, it is kept under lock and key. In Alabama, single beers are arranged carefully on attractive beds of crushed ice right inside the entrance of every gas station. In Maryland, you can only buy it at liquor stores. Granted, there’s one on practically every corner, but it’s still just that much more inconvenient.
4a. Early to bed, early to rise. Savannah, with its 3 a.m. last call and liberal open container laws is on par with Vegas when compared to Baltimore. Bars close at 2, unless the bartenders are just ready to go, in which case you might find yourself back at home, half-drunk, at 11 p.m. on a Saturday night. Every bar, however, serves Maker’s Mark, which negates this otherwise-unforgivable sin.
I’m sure there’s a lot for me to learn, but these are a few of the things that have struck me thus far. Still—I love my new home, and I’m beginning to accept the sirens, the short tempers, the teetotalers and the bad drivers as simply quirky side effects of what is otherwise a pretty dang cool place to be.
Oh, and also when driving in the North, it is perfectly acceptable to use the middle finger as a friendly greeting. I’m pretty sure that is how yankees say “Hello.”
I’ve been lucky to avoid that one thus far, but that is mostly because I’m too nervous while driving to make eye contact with anyone else on the road. In fact, really the only time I’ve been given the finger on the road was when someone in North Carolina disagreed with my choice of political bumper sticker.
Not to say all of the above isn’t true, but technically you’re still south of the Mason-Dixon line, which is between Maryland and Pennsylvania. It may not exactly seem like Dixie around here, but we all have the same attitude, which can be summed up thusly: The south will rise again! Yee. Haw.
I have to say, that’s the first time I’ve heard “the south will rise again” since moving to Maryland.
So, thanks for that little reminder of home. Yee-haw.