Good ol’ boys
Just returned from a fantastic weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina. Went to visit my former boss Bill Schoening who runs all the radio staions for my former company CBS Radio in Charlotte. Bill became quite famous when he ran 98PXY here in the late 80’s and 90’s. He’s now infamous down south. Let’s just say he knows how to throw a party. I was lucky to get the royal treatment from Bill and his all*star team down south y’all. Charlotte is a great city, lots of great things happening, very modern and fun. The only thing I have trouble with down there is the fact that many are still fighting the civil war. And I’m not blaming it on the southerners. Northern transplants are half to blame. Neither group likes to hang with the other side. As good ol’ Rodney King blurted out once…”can’t we all just get along?”
I got into an interesting conversation with a southern gentleman at one of our favorite hangouts named Vinnies in CNC. I will paraphrase but I’m sure you’ll get the gist. It won’t read as well as it sounded cuz this guy had a very, very deep southern drawl. But here’s the transcript of our delightful talk after consuming beers together for 10 minutes (key: RN=southern redneck M=northern Mayor):
RN: So Payte (that’s south speak for Pete), where y’all frum?
M: Rochester.
RN: Raaahchestur? Where’s that, North Carliner or South Caroliner?
M: New York.
RN: NEW YERK SEETY?
M: No sir, we’re upstate about 5 hours on Lake Ontario.
RN: (serious look on his face) Well Payte, that makes ya a yang-key (south speak for Yankee). Only one thing wurse than that……if ya mooooove her, you a dammmmmnnnnn yang-key!
M: Nice to meet you!
After I walked away and relayed this deep, intelligent coversation to my northern buddies at the end of the bar, they responded by telling me….”what are you doing???? We don’t hang out with southerners!!!!”
So, there’s what’s wrong with the south. Nobody trusts the next guy if you don’t sound like each other. Doesn’t matter if you were educated at Harvard, the northern guys will still think those good ol’ boys from south of the Mason-Dixon Line are stupid, and the southern guys still think they won the war (which I believe ended long before the Bush or Clinton administrations). It did not hold me back from havin’ a grand ol’ time however, and I shall return to try to bring ‘em all back together in the future. As for now, it’s just good to be back home like hopefully our troops will be soon. God bless our troops!