Tuesday, January 30, 2007
A Little Life Lesson
Part of me is still amazed every time I hear someone express their amazement at my negative experiences up north or in other parts of the country. As you know by now, I have many theories on many of life's circumstances and goings-on, and so it is with this.
To fully understand where I am going with this, let me explain where I have been. I was born in Metairie, La. -- a sububurb of New Orleans -- and have spent most of my life in Baton Rouge. After high school, I spent a year in South Bend, Ind., at Holy Cross College. If you are geographically challenged, South Bend is located on the southeast side of Lake Michigan about an hour east of Chicago. My experiences there were haunting: bland food, rude people, ugly women, painfully cold weather. Basically, the antithesis of what I had experienced growing up. In fact, when my roommate Rory (who is from upstate New York) came to Louisiana to visit, he was amazed when we passed someone walking up the steps at Middleton Library at LSU and they smiled and said "Hello." Rory asked if I knew that person. When I said I did not, his jaw hit the floor. Common courtesy does not exist in the north.
Also, after my sophomore year at LSU, I spent a summer selling books in Minnesota. I was literally selling door-to-door to poor Midwestern farmers. Now, there is nothing wrong with being a farmer. They are the backbone of the American agricultural landscape, but by the nature of what I was doing I met more than 2,000 families that summer. My experiences were eerily similar to those in South Bend.
My point in telling you all of this is that I received an e-mail from a good friend of mine who is in Med School in the Caribbean. When he read my last blog entry detailing my trip to Chicago, he was as horrified as I was regarding the treatment we received by Bears fans; specifically the taunts related to Hurricane Katrina. Ski's exact words to me:
"so i have been reading your not-so-daily blog and i was horrified at the chicago experience. I complained to the 2 friends i have here. One is from new orleans so he was as shocked as i was. I understand that some people can get caught up in the atmosphere and lose track of things but that was ridiculous! It has always been a joke when people from the north ask us if we still ride in pirogue or wrestle alligators but I am starting to think that this is their actual opinion of LA and MS. Why don't they care? I cant figure it out. Why don't people get the point that Katrina was a major event in American history? Is it apathy from the middle class. Does george bush really not care about black people!? I hate to think that I will have an automatic staple on me when I go to the north for my rotations next year."
Allow me to address these points. Yes, that is the opinion of the overwhelming majority of people in the north. Don't believe me? We were even heckled about Katrina by a homeless man as we left Soldier Field! A man who smelled like shit was taunting me, a college educated goal-oriented man. Even homeless people think they have it better than we do.
The next obvious question is why do they think this way? Here is where my theory comes into place. For an answer, you truly have to go back more than 100 years to the Civil War era and the industrial revolution (Don't worry, I will not bore you with this). To a large degree, there is a certain degree of separatism in the US that lingers because of the Civil War. Why do you think LSU fans cheered so hard when Florida beat Ohio State in the National Championship Game? The South is better! Why is it that if a candidate from you state (ie Bill Clinton) runs for a national office, you will vote for him even if you hate his politics (Arkansas is a historically conservative state)? It's about pride. It's about unfinished business. Why do you constantly hear people on the West coast talk about an East coast bias in the news? Because there is one! The West coast was an unsettled wasteland that belonged to Mexico and God-knows-who-else during our nation's largest crisis--the event that threatened to tear apart what we have and hold dear. As the North and South have continued their bitter rivalry, the West coast has been settled and like the youngest child in a family, keeps screaming "Hey! I'm here too!" but no one ever pays it any attention.
And it's not just the North bashing the South for being uneducated, racist goons. how many times on this blog have I written about the bland food, rude people, ugly women and painfully cold weather? Oh wait, that is several paragraphs up. See my point. It is a constant back-and-forth like a sibling rivalry and there is no end in sight.
To a small degree, that is my theory on why we hate eachother. As to why Northern people and Southerners are so different in our cultures, I believe we would have to go back to the Industrial Revolution. Think about this: if you woke up before dawn, spent 10 hour a day in a dark factory inhaling God awful fumes all day, walked home in sub-freezing temperatures to eat a bland meal, make love to your ugly wife, got six hours of sleep and then got up and did it all over again, how would you feel? You would be pissed! And children saw their parents pissed all the time!
On the other hand, if you woke up with the sun, worked off the land, never dealt with a demanding boss and made love to a gorgeous wife who could turn something called a "crawfish" into a gourmet meal, wouldn't you be happy too? Wouldn't you have a nicer disposition? Wouldn't you stop and enjoy life and maybe open a door for a neighbor? Yes! And children saw their parents do it, and grew up nicer as well.
Consequently, with industry growing in the north and farming remaining the major source of revenue in the south, northerners became more educated to get out of the factory life and move into a corporate setting, while southerners did not stress education as much. The attitude of "My daddy was a farmer, so I'll be a farmer" or whatever the trade might be, was pervasive. So, as the north became more and more educated, the south fell further and further behind in that area. Why do you think the oldest colleges in the country are in the north while LSU had a mere 45 students in 1873 after the state legislature cut funding? Priorities.
And so it has continued. Generation after generation of beautiful southern women continue to bear HOTT daughters while generation after generation of ugly northerners cram their heads into books trying to continue their legacy. I could actually go into far more detail, but this is long enough. Hope it makes sense. Thoughts? Suggestions? Comments?
To fully understand where I am going with this, let me explain where I have been. I was born in Metairie, La. -- a sububurb of New Orleans -- and have spent most of my life in Baton Rouge. After high school, I spent a year in South Bend, Ind., at Holy Cross College. If you are geographically challenged, South Bend is located on the southeast side of Lake Michigan about an hour east of Chicago. My experiences there were haunting: bland food, rude people, ugly women, painfully cold weather. Basically, the antithesis of what I had experienced growing up. In fact, when my roommate Rory (who is from upstate New York) came to Louisiana to visit, he was amazed when we passed someone walking up the steps at Middleton Library at LSU and they smiled and said "Hello." Rory asked if I knew that person. When I said I did not, his jaw hit the floor. Common courtesy does not exist in the north.
Also, after my sophomore year at LSU, I spent a summer selling books in Minnesota. I was literally selling door-to-door to poor Midwestern farmers. Now, there is nothing wrong with being a farmer. They are the backbone of the American agricultural landscape, but by the nature of what I was doing I met more than 2,000 families that summer. My experiences were eerily similar to those in South Bend.
My point in telling you all of this is that I received an e-mail from a good friend of mine who is in Med School in the Caribbean. When he read my last blog entry detailing my trip to Chicago, he was as horrified as I was regarding the treatment we received by Bears fans; specifically the taunts related to Hurricane Katrina. Ski's exact words to me:
"so i have been reading your not-so-daily blog and i was horrified at the chicago experience. I complained to the 2 friends i have here. One is from new orleans so he was as shocked as i was. I understand that some people can get caught up in the atmosphere and lose track of things but that was ridiculous! It has always been a joke when people from the north ask us if we still ride in pirogue or wrestle alligators but I am starting to think that this is their actual opinion of LA and MS. Why don't they care? I cant figure it out. Why don't people get the point that Katrina was a major event in American history? Is it apathy from the middle class. Does george bush really not care about black people!? I hate to think that I will have an automatic staple on me when I go to the north for my rotations next year."
Allow me to address these points. Yes, that is the opinion of the overwhelming majority of people in the north. Don't believe me? We were even heckled about Katrina by a homeless man as we left Soldier Field! A man who smelled like shit was taunting me, a college educated goal-oriented man. Even homeless people think they have it better than we do.
The next obvious question is why do they think this way? Here is where my theory comes into place. For an answer, you truly have to go back more than 100 years to the Civil War era and the industrial revolution (Don't worry, I will not bore you with this). To a large degree, there is a certain degree of separatism in the US that lingers because of the Civil War. Why do you think LSU fans cheered so hard when Florida beat Ohio State in the National Championship Game? The South is better! Why is it that if a candidate from you state (ie Bill Clinton) runs for a national office, you will vote for him even if you hate his politics (Arkansas is a historically conservative state)? It's about pride. It's about unfinished business. Why do you constantly hear people on the West coast talk about an East coast bias in the news? Because there is one! The West coast was an unsettled wasteland that belonged to Mexico and God-knows-who-else during our nation's largest crisis--the event that threatened to tear apart what we have and hold dear. As the North and South have continued their bitter rivalry, the West coast has been settled and like the youngest child in a family, keeps screaming "Hey! I'm here too!" but no one ever pays it any attention.
And it's not just the North bashing the South for being uneducated, racist goons. how many times on this blog have I written about the bland food, rude people, ugly women and painfully cold weather? Oh wait, that is several paragraphs up. See my point. It is a constant back-and-forth like a sibling rivalry and there is no end in sight.
To a small degree, that is my theory on why we hate eachother. As to why Northern people and Southerners are so different in our cultures, I believe we would have to go back to the Industrial Revolution. Think about this: if you woke up before dawn, spent 10 hour a day in a dark factory inhaling God awful fumes all day, walked home in sub-freezing temperatures to eat a bland meal, make love to your ugly wife, got six hours of sleep and then got up and did it all over again, how would you feel? You would be pissed! And children saw their parents pissed all the time!
On the other hand, if you woke up with the sun, worked off the land, never dealt with a demanding boss and made love to a gorgeous wife who could turn something called a "crawfish" into a gourmet meal, wouldn't you be happy too? Wouldn't you have a nicer disposition? Wouldn't you stop and enjoy life and maybe open a door for a neighbor? Yes! And children saw their parents do it, and grew up nicer as well.
Consequently, with industry growing in the north and farming remaining the major source of revenue in the south, northerners became more educated to get out of the factory life and move into a corporate setting, while southerners did not stress education as much. The attitude of "My daddy was a farmer, so I'll be a farmer" or whatever the trade might be, was pervasive. So, as the north became more and more educated, the south fell further and further behind in that area. Why do you think the oldest colleges in the country are in the north while LSU had a mere 45 students in 1873 after the state legislature cut funding? Priorities.
And so it has continued. Generation after generation of beautiful southern women continue to bear HOTT daughters while generation after generation of ugly northerners cram their heads into books trying to continue their legacy. I could actually go into far more detail, but this is long enough. Hope it makes sense. Thoughts? Suggestions? Comments?
# posted by Matt Moscona @ 8:28 AM 
