Day-after Stanley Cup column

This is one of the reasons we moved out of Charlotte when I was a kid. (Hurricane Hugo was one of the others.) Things that tend to be from a northern "culture" are rejected.

My family is originally from Pittsburgh. We moved down there when I was in 4th grade because of my dad's work.

In the two years we lived down there, our neighbors on either side of our house talked to us once-combined. I was called "Yankee" more times than I can remember. And calling someone a Yankee was a serious insult there. It wasn't just some teasing, they thought they were being vicious. They still were fighting the Civil War down there.

We moved back after two years.

Now that was 15 years ago, so attitudes and life may have changed down there, but this column doesn't exactly show that.

Southern hospitality is very much a myth.

 

It's one of my favorite SI covers of all-time. Other than the swimsuit ones that is. ;D

 

So, you're saying there are two distinct classes in Carolina and hockey attracts the  better one.  

 

Wow, that's a huge brush you're wielding. "The Triangle is educated", "country folk." I'm a Mass. native who worked in N.C. for seven years. Those country folk you speak of aren't quite who you perceive them to be. The natives, even those who grew up in such places as Yanceyville and Murphy, have teeth, went to school and can, oddly enough, spell their own names.

Hockey indeed works in Raleigh because of the transplants, to a certain extent. But my former boss (a native upstate New Yorker) covered the Finals and reports that a lot of native-born southerners have taken to the sport. And before I left eight years ago, it was easy for me to find a rink to go for a skate or even find ice time with 20 other guys. And I lived out with the "country folk."

 

I have a friend that lived in Chapel Hill for about two years. He told me pretty much the Triangle was ok. But go outside it and you're in Mayberry.

 

Dude, as someone from the South - though I've been called a Yankee myself because I have no accent - I'm sorry.

The South is very, very polarized. In some cases, the hospitality is total crap. But I've run into my share of people who would do anything for a complete stranger ... either on the job or just dealing with me as a person.

OTOH, there are still people who are willing to buy a bus ticket to take Yankees "back home." Some are joking, knowing it's a stereotype ... but that stereotype still exists for a reason.

One tends to get more consistent treatment in more metro settings like Charlotte, the Triangle and the Triad. Rarely are you shown extraordinary hospitality, but since you're more likely to run into non-Southerners, at least you're less likely to called and treated like a "Yankee." The hit-and-miss treatment occurs in the outlying areas.

In summary, I've seen parts of the South evolve, while other parts remain every bit the nightmare to outsiders as already noted.

 

Southern hospitality is a myth to an extent. I moved to NC about the time you moved out. My elderly neighbor there lived her entire life in the same house. She couldn't have accepted me with more open arms. She treated me like I was one of her grandsons. She asked me to do odd jobs around her house. In return, she gave me more than enough of the best cornbread I've ever had. For the most part, being down there was one of the best things I did. I only got riled up when folks called me Yankee because I'm a native Bostonian and thus genetically programmed to hate anything Yankee-related.

While I often say that Southerners will lie to you while smiling to make it seem sweet, there are regional prejudices everywhere. Us New Englanders are rather provincial ourselves.

 

I've been to NC and other parts of the south a couple of times but just on business. All the people I met were extraordinarily friendly--way too friendly for a morose Canadian however.

Since I wasn't exactly a northerner but a weird foreigner (they thought I had a British accent) maybe they were just treating me like an exotic pet.

 

I mean it wasn't like we had NO friends down there. It's not like everyone down there was a ass-backwards idiot. But the friends I did have were some-times called Yankee-lovers for hanging out with me.

 

Two years isn't long enough to form a representative opinion. I lived in Rocky Mount, Raleigh, Greensboro and Burlington. People on the outskirts of Rocky Mount, which has some really backwater places surrounding it, couldn't have been nicer. Even if I never pronounced an 'R.'

 

At the risk of getting back on topic, Sorenson's column is a classic example why people hate the media and think it's populated by pompous, arrogant assholes who only want to print bad news and denigrate the good things people accomplish.

In general, Sorenson is an excellent columnist, but as some have noted, he made himself look like a fool with this one.

 

Yeah shecky, that was obviously a generalization but I never said North Carolinians outside of the Triangle didn't have teeth or didn't go to school. But the Research Triangle area is a very highly educated area with lots of people in high-level medical, pharmicutical and computer fields. Trust me I've had plenty of experience in places such as Yanceyville and Lumberton and while I met plenty of nice people you can also see where the Southern stereotypes come from. I think most people would be very surprised how much different the culture is in the RBC Center area than just 30 or 40 miles away in Roxboro or Mebane.