Saturday, November 03, 2007

Being in the South

Taking a break from chronicling our move because this is getting silly, my need to catch up before posting what comes to mind. Besides I am now only two weeks behind life, so what.ever.

In an earlier post I believe I made reference to that fact while Ohio is technically counted as a midwest state, Dayton is the South, in my not so humble opinion. Most people have some sort of southern accent, slight to heavy, the food choices in restaurants flip between a midwest "meat and potatoes" menu and a fried chicken, hush puppies and bbq selection.

Dorothy, aka me, is no longer in her version of Kansas in this more conservative and republican state. I have never lived anywhere with so many religious radio stations. While driving across the country I certainly found many religious stations, along with country music, neither is my listening preference. I expected that, what I did not expect was the area I was moving to would also feature this so much.

Another sign of the southernly nature of the area is Cody, Jeriann's son. Quite awhile ago I became "Miss Dharma", spouse of Aunt TGF. Shortly after moving here, on his own Cody upgraded me to Aunt Dharma which warms my heart no end. Today while walking Wyatt I saw one of neighbors who I knew from our tour of Johnson Street (see previous post). She introduced me to her husband and son. Her son was prompted to stop playing with Wyatt and "Say hello to Miss Dharma". I received the statement with grace but I was laughing quite a bit inside. In point of fact I have always felt comfortable in the South and with folks from the South. TGF was constantly surprising while we were courting how much I know about Southern customs, sayings and traditions. Laughing I would tell her I was Southern in a previous life. I guess it makes sense then that I'm here, huh?

I suppose I should make a pitcher of sweet tea before my beloved comes home from work.

2 comments:

Kate said...

The blogosphere is good for cross cultural understanding for foreigners, but your journey thus far has been very eye-opening - especially for someone who had assumed Ohio was homogenously mid-western!

Grats on being Aunt Dharma. :)

wen said...

there are a ton of differences between northeastern ohio (cleveland region and out towards pennsylvania) and southern ohio. dayton, cinncinati etc are indeed the south, with a midwestern touch. or vice versa. hard to say. cross over into kentucky and it feels like a mix of appalachian and southern. :)