We All Look Alike, Too

A light moment amid a bit of a crisis. My dear wife is in the ICU with double pneumonia and sepsis. A young woman comes in today to take her breakfast and lunch orders for the next day. She looks at the three of us and says, "Where are you from?"

Our very good friend sitting with us is from Greenville, TN. Certainly in summer 1954, when he was born, it was pretty much country, and our friend can tell you tales for hours about it and makes a living at doing exactly that. My wife, three months older, is from Montgomery, AL, and Atlanta, GA. You don't get more southern than these two. The Virginia/Tennessee state line is the farthest north my wife has ever lived.

But hospital girl heard my voice, and that was all it took.

"Well, I've lived in the South for more than 40 years, but I grew up in New York and that'll never go away."

Her response: "I met people from Maryland once. They were mean."

Yeah, Maryland. Boy, what Yankees they are—that slave state during the War of Northern Aggression. That far-off land that happens to share a border with Virginia. For all I know, though, except for the part of Bristol over the state line (the hospital is in Tennessee, god help us), the young woman may never have ventured any deeper into the Commonwealth.

Back when mi esposa and I were dating, we were visiting my homeplace: the Mississippi of the Northeast. My father was a car dealer, and one time we needed to board a flight to return to Atlanta but my father was pressed for time to get us to the airport. Since I grew up on Staten Island, we'd fly out of Newark, NJ. My father corraled one of the young porters or mechanics to give us a ride--about 15 minutes. The young man averred that it was his first time off Staten Island. At the time, and still, I find that hard to believe, but after living in this part of the world for the last 19 years, it's far more plausible than it used to be.