Guns & Trucks

The deep south is a special place. Everything moves at a slower pace than up north. I can’t even begin to understand why. Maybe the heat slows people down. Maybe it’s the food they eat, or something in the water. I’m sure if I had paid more attention in US History I’d have a better idea, but man, that class was dry.

Most of my waking hours have been spent up north, in New York and New England, and heading on down to the deep south was a first for me. Sure, I’ve been to Arizona – but that’s really just an extension of California – I’m talking about the cotton-pickin’, gun-totin’, deep-fried south. Most of my preconceptions of the south were wildly validated by my recent visit. So; a small glimpse of the south, through the lens of a life-long northerner:

It’s dark out, and it looks just like any city I’ve ever flown into at night: main highways lined with white and red, the orange glow of sodium street lamps, suburban sprawl. Wheels down in Nashville. Almost immediately I hear it: country music. Yup, I’m in the south. There’s a man playing acoustic guitar and singing with that country twang in a bar near the gate I arrived at. He’s not a bad musican. That twang though, is like nails on a chalkboard to me. I move on quickly. Baggage claim, and huge wall sized advertisements for the “Grand Ole Opry” abound. Oh boy.

I make my way down to the rental car agency. The people are nice, and I get my car without much delay. It’s a Mazda 5 with Arizona plates. Ugly. As I’m leaving the airport, I have to get my car checked by the agent at the exit of the rental car garage. He tells me to “be safe ya hear?” and that “he appreciates me”. I say “thanks”.

Speed limit is 70. That seems to be pretty common down here. I get close to the exit for the hotel I’m staying at, and notice all the restaurants. BBQ, Steak and Shake, Outback, Chilis, Pulled Pork… and about ten fast food places. The only fast food place I’ve never seen before is “Waffle House”. It looks sketchy. Check-in at the hotel is a breeze, and the hotel staff all have that southern hospitality thing going on. It’s kind of nice.

First morning of work goes by quickly, and lunch is at a place called Toot’s. I’m apprehensive. One of the guys I’m doing the job for gets deep-fried pickles. I didn’t know you could deep fry those, but apparently it’s a local delicacy. Salty. That’s about all. I can’t eat more than two. Need water. So salty. How can these guys eat a whole basket of these things? I order fried chicken for lunch, because it’s the special of the day. It hasn’t even arrived yet and these guys are getting refills on their sodas. I haven’t finished half of my water yet. My chicken isn’t anything to write home about, average on all counts. The other guys seemingly inhale their lunch. There’s a tv on in the booth, ESPN, showing highlights of all the football games from the week. One of the guys apparently watched all of the games, and says “oh, watch this, this play coming up is amazing” before every clip is shown. Football is big here. I’m asked about my team. I tell them I watch hockey. I don’t think they know what that is.

On the ride back, I notice that pickup trucks and SUV’s outnumber the cars here. I can see why when I look around at all the food options – fast food and deep-fried are king here. I finish my work for the day and head back to my hotel. I’m spent from the day, but I have a good couple hours of paperwork and correspondence to take care of. Hunger sets in. I’m not looking forward to my options. Google maps. There’s a Greek restaurant surprisingly close. I do a little more research, and it seems legitimate. It’s no Uncle Georges, but it’s damn good Greek food.

Day two is more of the same. Chili’s for lunch. The attitude that I saw towards women here is scary. It’s like a high school football boys club. And the scarier part is that the women don’t seem to know any different. Every single interaction that I witnessed involved the women acting subservient to the men. I was uncomfortable. Lunch conversation centers around football again. Half an hour spent discussing the intricacies of the NFL draft. I remain mostly quiet, because I am bored to tears.

Wheels up. On my way to Charlotte, and then on to JFK. Wheels down. Five minutes to boarding. “Attention passengers for flight 374 with service to JFK. There is an Air Traffic halt at JFK. We will be boarding in four hours. We apologize for the delay.” Great. How many babies are going to be on this flight? Looks like six. Better go eat. I wait at the gate across the terminal from mine, because my gate is packed, there are no free outlets, and the babies are getting pissed.

Finally, we land at JFK. We’re on our way to the gate. “Attention passengers, this is your captain speaking. There’s uh… no easy way to say this… because of the air traffic halt, there are no free gates, so we’re going to have to wait here on the runway for… looks like thirty minutes.” An hour and fifteen minutes later we pull up to the gate. Lights go on. People stand up. Nobody’s moving forward. “Attention passengers, it looks like there’s a problem with the jetway, we should have you off the plane in about five minutes.” Okay. Sure. In the meantime, one of the ground crew opens up the back door of the plane and starts to load food into the galley for the next flight. Since we aren’t technically at the gate yet, the engines are still running. The entire back of the plane is quickly filled with jet exhaust: instant headache.

Fifteen minutes later, finally off the plane.

I hop on the AirTram to Jamaica and get on the LIRR. No more southern drawl. No more babies crying. Just NYC commuters headed home.

It’s good to be back in the north.

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