You Must Not Be From Around Here
Home is one thing. Where you’re from is another. And can you talk about the difference politely while you're standing in the checkout line?
My husband lowers his armload of groceries onto the TEN ITEMS OR LESS, PLEASE! checkout counter of our neighborhood Publix (“Where Shopping Is a Pleasure in Florida Since 1930!”) — and immediately loses control of the two Granny Smith apples we were planning to eat in the truck on our way home.
Apologizing to the heavily sunscreened patron in front of us, he regathers the fruit and stashes it between a bag of cat food and a six-pack of PBR. The woman stares at him, then resumes counting the change in her hand, as if his jostle might somehow have changed the total. I concentrate on the view outside the store’s massive plate-glass windows, where the heat has already shimmered up off the sidewalk and is now held captive by palm fronds stilled in the late morning sun.
“My goodness! Just listen to that accent. Now where in the world are you all from?” The checkout clerk giggles at her own imitative and exaggerated drawl. JOYCEPHINE — so identified by that requisite green and white name tag — is only doing her job, of course, trying to engage each customer in friendly conversation. I bristle — but my husband, as even-tempered as he is sociable, laughs it off.
“Well, Joycephine,” he says with a disarming grin. “I’m obviously from some place you’re not familiar with.” But in such a kind way that her flash of confusion slides into a tentative smile. We pay for our groceries and leave the store without further incident, Joycephine’s “Y’all have a blessed day, now, you hear?” wafting after us as we make our way past the small clot of folks availing themselves of the complimentary coffee service.
Once in the truck, my husband cranks up the AC, then shines both apples against the front of his T-shirt.
“You enjoyed that, I could tell,” he says, passing one my way. I shrug, bite into the tart fruit, and consider the ideas of place and home and where in the world are you all from? Something that has tickled the back of my mind for the forty-some-odd years I’ve been a legal resident of this great state of Florida. (My husband actually does happen to be from around here, a bona fide native son. Something of a rarity, it seems, if you were to ask the average Joe today on any Florida street.)
I and my forebears, on the other hand, hail from southern Appalachia, where the significances of both place and origin story still reign supreme. (“Now, whose girl are you?” the likely query after introduction to anyone who might not already know; an attempt to assess familial association as well as to which part of Indian Creek we might lay claim.) I identify with the language, customs, and landscape of a place that still holds the adult me in its clutches — and though I have now lived more than two-thirds of my life away from that born home, I certainly know better than to now say that I am from Florida.
I am a partner in a retail nursery/landscape company in a northeast Florida tourist town, and I frequently hear the following: “Sure, we moved here from Michigan (or Ohio or Wisconsin or New York, wherever) — but that was ten (or fifteen or twenty, whenever) years ago, so you could say we’re practically natives!”
This might be your home now, but it definitely ain’t where you’re from, because — in this particular case — those are two completely different things. And it makes me wonder what it is in folks that has them so easily shed one skin for another, denying birthright in order to appropriate a different heritage.
No, I can’t. Because no, you’re not. This might be your home now, but it definitely ain’t where you’re from, because — in this particular case — those are two completely different things. And it makes me wonder what it is in folks that has them so easily shed one skin for another, denying birthright in order to appropriate a different heritage.
There are many things that make a place a home: where you’re born, for instance (if you are lucky or care enough to stay); where your partner is from or where your children might be born and/or take up residence. It also might be where you end up due to circumstances beyond your control. Or it could be a place that reaches right up out of nowhere and — surprise! — grabs you by the heart.
Florida grabbed me early and held me hard. And though I now call it home I would never have the temerity to say that I am from here. Or, God forbid, assume that I have become a native — because that just wouldn’t be right. Nor would it be fair to the folks who are. And I’ve pretty much known that since I was five years old.
The pre-Disney 1950s was a fine time to fall in love with the Sunshine State. Especially the southwest coast, where my eastern Kentucky grandparents chose to spend their snowbird months, their modest bungalow mere steps from a small strip of bay. Sandy roads paralleling warm clear Gulf water, pan-fried pompano or snook with grits for breakfast practically every day, fever blisters from all the tangelos and grapefruit one could possibly eat. Sunburned shoulders against crisp sheets cooled by box fans propped into open windows. Pure heaven. I thought, even then: maybe someday I could live in a place like this.
Up the road a ways sat a grimy gas station/bait store/taxidermy shop where we grandkids were allowed to spend our pocket change on ice cream sandwiches or barbecued pork rinds and small, frigid bottles of Coca-Cola, daring each other to touch the mangy-hided, stuffed, two-headed calf standing guard at the front door. The store’s proprietor — Mister Jakey — was a gruff local who resented snowbirds about as much as he despised tourists. But he happened to appreciate my grandparents, who, coming from eastern Kentucky, were at the very least Fellow Southerners. And so not, God help them, Yankees.
“There are actually three types of Yankee,” I heard him hold forth one steamy afternoon. He and my father stood smoking outside the store while I shopped for my treat du jour. “You’ve got your Regular Yankee, of course — that’s anybody from north of the Mason-Dixon line. He just visits for the hell of it. Now he will always count the change you’ve already handed him.” And here Mister Jakey lowered his eyes and nodded toward the counter where his wife was bagging up Noxzema Cream and Fritos for a frightfully sunburned potbellied man sporting white socks and sandals. Who was, indeed, painstakingly recounting the change in his hand.
Mister Jakey winked at his wife and continued. “And then there’s your Damn Yankee, who is only a Regular Yankee that thinks nothing of coming down here for vacation and telling everybody around here what’s wrong with the South and how everything is much better Up North.
“And then there are those Goddamn Yankees,” he said, spitting onto the oyster-shell walkway — and here my father cut a warning glance my way. “The worst ones, if you ask me. These folks just up and move down here permanently and then try to turn everything they touch into something Yankee, all the while telling anyone who’ll listen that they’re Locals.” He sighed and dropped his cigarette onto the walkway, then crushed it with the heel of his unlaced tennis shoe, all the while slowly shaking his head at such audacity.
I couldn’t tell from his tone which word was worse: Hell, Yankee, Damn, or Goddamn — but I couldn’t wait to rush home and relate all this to my grandfather, who was hands-deep in blood and scales at the fish-cleaning table. I relished the way the profanity rolled off my five-year-old tongue: “Yankee,” I repeated. “Damn Yankee. Goddamn Yankee. Hell!”
I relished the way the profanity rolled off my five-year-old tongue: “Yankee,” I repeated. “Damn Yankee. Goddamn Yankee. Hell!” My grandfather, though amused, clearly considered this a Teaching Moment. He rinsed his hands and, wiping them against his khaki fishing pants, squatted to face me directly.
My grandfather, though amused, clearly considered this a Teaching Moment. He rinsed his hands and, wiping them against his khaki fishing pants, squatted to face me directly.
“It’s one thing to use profanity, young lady,” he said, brushing the sweaty bangs off my forehead, “and another thing entirely to turn an actual person into a bad word. No one can help where he’s born, nor should he be judged or criticized for that. And no one should ever be reduced to a label. Do you hear me? Because mark my words: somewhere out there are labels for each and every one of us. And they very well may be neither deserved nor pleasant to hear. So go on, now, and do not repeat this story to your grandmother. She’s liable to rinse your mouth out with soap. And, come to think of it, Mister Jakey’s mouth as well. You wouldn’t want that to happen, now, would you?”
He straightened back up to the task at hand, leaving me to retreat to the shade of the tangerine tree beside the garage to unwrap my Hostess Snoball and ponder the idea of why anyone, Goddamn Yankee or no, would ever consider moving away from his home and pretend to be something he wasn’t.
Cultural misappropriation, of course, isn’t limited to the ever-expanding number of folks reimagining themselves by migrating to Florida. Or anywhere else, for that matter. A restless species, we all seem hardwired to leave some sort of footprint, some proof that we are somebody from somewhere, damn it. That we exist.
“You worry about this too much,” my husband says. He suggests I might be overthinking the motives of the increasing flood of Northern migrants to “our” state who seem intent on remolding it to fit their own needs. He is also quick to tone down my usual end-of-workday rant centering around those newcomers to our — already fragile! — coastal area who seek to destroy all the native vegetation buffering their recently acquired retirement homesites. Most of these folks desire a “Tropical Paradise” instead, replete with those showy and exotic species more suited to the landscapes three hundred or so miles to our south. With a lawn service to caretake their highly manicured fertilizer-/water-/pesticide-sink of a lawn. As well as some classical statuary and a fountain or two.
“Can you imagine?” I say, sipping my wine. “There goes yet another oak hammock along with all the understory pollinator habitat! And don’t get me started on all that chemical runoff into the Intracoastal Waterway. Blasphemy! Anathema!” Yankee. Damn. Goddamn. Hell.
“Oh, come on, now,” he says. “Just leave them alone. They’re all only looking for a good place to die, anyway. Aren’t we all? Why not here?”
“Oh, come on, now,” he says. “Just leave them alone. They’re all only looking for a good place to die, anyway. Aren’t we all? Why not here?”
Why not, indeed? I shouldn’t have a problem with that, lest I turn into Mister Jakey.
“Still.” I sigh and fall sullen. “Even the prospect of death shouldn’t give people an excuse to act like a bunch of self-absorbed babies.”
And here is where my husband might channel Kurt Vonnegut: Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.
And I might sigh — again! —and finish my drink. Welcome. Be kind. God damn it.
Soon enough, we scratch across the shell drive leading to our house. My husband retrieves the single grocery bag from the truck cab and, whistling, strides toward the front door. I climb out of the truck and lean against its warm ticking hood, watching a flutter of Dainty Sulphur butterflies busy themselves within the blooming Spanish needles that have overtaken our yard. I take some time finishing my apple. And try to steady the vague sense of unease that has followed me home from the store.
It occurs here that these weirdly changing times are calling for us to take more than especial care with each other. With ourselves. And with the increasingly endangered landscapes wherein we happen to find ourselves — no matter how insurmountable all of that may seem. We just need to be kind, God damn it. Kind and respectful.
Kind and respectful enough, for instance, not to make fun of — or worse! — imitate anyone else’s accent. Because that’s just bad manners.
And, unless it’s the single thing that might guarantee a peaceful shuffle off this mortal coil, I would suggest we refrain — please, of course! — from identifying as “native” to wherever it is we end up, no matter how much we love it or how long we’ve lived there. Because unless it’s back in one’s own born home, that simply wouldn’t be telling the truth.
And that just ain’t right, I think, throwing the apple core into the yaupon thicket. No matter how Goddamn kind we might happen to be.
Jean K. Dowdy is a hopefully-soon-to-be-retiring horticulturalist who lives and works in the relative wilds of northeast Florida. Aside from gardening columns featured in local periodicals over the years, her poetry has appeared in Oberon Poetry Journal and SWWIM Every Day online.