I went to Texas Tech and have a genuine love for West Texas. Now living in NB, I can say that I don’t miss the weather or scenery but the people of West Texas are the finest in the world. I’ve lived all over the state. Corpus till two years after high school, Austin, Lubbock, Dallas, San Antonio and finally home in NB.
Date a redhead in college. Don’t cross her....apparently you already know that.
I really, really miss the accents and people, especially the sense of humor. Plus the precise answers to questions.
In the deep south if you ask when somebody will be back it will be “a while” and if you ask if that is less than an hour they say “ a little bit. Or how far, “ a ways” or direction “yonder” or size “pretty big”. Plus, it takes a long time to get that answer. They say the reason there are so few local virgins is that by the time the girl says “quit it!, stop” the yankee boys have already moved on. Locally “quit” is pronounced with 3 syllables “ca wih it”.
It absolutely drives me nuts that you can not get a precise answer to any question posed in NC.
Moving to NC from TX was as strange to me as living in Greece - the foods, religion, measurements, dress, laws were all very different. When I moved here the restaurants and hospitals had signs posted, “Thank You for Smoking” and you had to bring your own liquor and join a club to drink a high ball. No restaurants were open on Sunday and you still can’t hunt on Sunday. The other dozens of Blue laws are now generally ignored. My deed actually says I can’t sell my house to Jews or Negros and I am not allowed to mow my yard or wash my car on Sunday.
About 25 years ago I actually had an old guy tell me I was not supposed to be mowing my yard. I told him I was a White Mountain Apache and when he respected my religious holidays I would respect his. That pretty much ended the conversation. Both of my great grandma’s were Cherokee but I figured Apache religious activities would be more mysterious since a lot of people around here are part Cherokee.