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Spending your off duty time in bars and restaurants being homesick must not have been fun. Of course, if Dixie were so blah, why did you spend nine years there?

I was on active duty and went where I was ordered to go.

Where was your curiosity or interest in the areas where you were stationed? Hopefully you toured some of the old forts, battlegrounds, plantations, museums, and gardens in those states.

I wasn't the Civil War buff that I am now so I confess that I didn't take advantage of the surroundings as I could have.

Was the local architecture not of interest to you? Did you not venture inland to see the mountains, forests, swamps, and boiling springs? Were you not captivated by the beauty of South Carolina's coastal marshes or the coral reefs in southern Florida or the white sand beaches in the Pensacola area?

Not really, no. We have beautiful areas up North, too, and those down South were no more or less attractive. The Flint Hills in Kansas, the lakes and rivers and forests of Wisconsin and Minnesota, the rural areas of Vermont or New York or any other area of the North in the fall when the leaves are changing, the Great Lakes shore line. I'd put any of them on a par with your beaches and marshes and hills of the South. We have amazing architecture up here as well. Frank Lloyd Wright did his best work in the Chicago area and examples of his creations are all over.

I think that the difference is that I like diversity and people down South want everything to be the same. Growing up in Chicago you could go from one end of Lawerence Avenue to the other and literally travel the entire world by passing through different neighborhoods. Mexico, Puerto Rico, Poland, Ukraine, Sweden, Ireland, Russia, Israel, China, Korea all were clustered on or near Lawrence or Clark or points east and west. Amazing restaurants and music, fascinating people. Maybe I'm wrong but one thing I notice about the South and its people is you don't like change. You don't go for different. When you're home you want everything to be just like you, and get upset when it's not. New Orleans is as close as you come to ethnic, and even then it's Southern and Cajun and a lot of you all don't seem to value it. Confederatetrappedinthemidwest doesn't like what he politely terms 'minorities'. Well in the North everyone is a minority in some way or another, and while it causes tensions in some ways it's also what makes us interesting. While Confederatetrappedinthemidwest laments that Katrina didn't do the job to his satisfaction, I'm thinking where we would be without Dixieland jazz, or Memphis or Chicago or Kansas City jazz. So maybe that's why I was underwhelmed by the South, too much sameness. Maybe that's why it isn't home and could never be home. And I'm sure that's why people like Confederatetrappedinthemidwest or Beckysueb can't stand the North. Too much different for their tastes. That doesn't make them better than me or me better than them. It is what it is.

Ah, this was meant for you, I must be over caffinated. I wrongly posted it to myself.

I'm thinking where we would be without Dixieland jazz, or Memphis or Chicago or Kansas City jazz. So maybe that's why I was underwhelmed by the South, too much sameness. Maybe we lived there at different times, or you was just too homesick. I found lots of diversity in both Charleston and Columbia. The Five Points, area of Columbia had great Jazz Musician's and the May fest held right there was a wealth of Greek, Thia, Chinese, influence's The Latin Dance Club on Two Notch Rd. was top notch. I spent lots of time with the Greek families that owner many of the Greek restaurants in Irmo, and James Island, They were right out of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" fun times roasting lamb in the front yard. By the way I use to drink at a bar 1985-1989 after leaving work, just north of one of the gates coming out of and on the same side of the street as the Charleston Naval Base near Cosgove and Spruill I think. Can't remember the name.

We have beautiful areas up North, too, and those down South were no more or less attractive. The Flint Hills in Kansas, the lakes and rivers and forests of Wisconsin and Minnesota, the rural areas of Vermont or New York or any other area of the North in the fall when the leaves are changing, the Great Lakes shore line. I'd put any of them on a par with your beaches and marshes and hills of the South.

I agree that there are great places in the North. In fact, there are wonderful places all over the country. I've been to all 50 states, and I didn't find any of them as blah as you seem to find the South. But tastes differ.

We have amazing architecture up here as well. Frank Lloyd Wright did his best work in the Chicago area and examples of his creations are all over.

I like FLW's work. One of my sons is an architect and has toured some of Wright's homes in the Chicago area. One of my uncles, also an architect, was a student of Wright's at Taliesin West. Wright was a character.

I think that the difference is that I like diversity and people down South want everything to be the same. Growing up in Chicago you could go from one end of Lawerence Avenue to the other and literally travel the entire world by passing through different neighborhoods. Mexico, Puerto Rico, Poland, Ukraine, Sweden, Ireland, Russia, Israel, China, Korea all were clustered on or near Lawrence or Clark or points east and west. Amazing restaurants and music, fascinating people. Maybe I'm wrong but one thing I notice about the South and its people is you don't like change. You don't go for different. When you're home you want everything to be just like you, and get upset when it's not.

LOL! You are overgeneralizing.

While the areas where I grew up may not have had the melting pot kind of diversity of Chicago, I listened in Texas to local radio stations play Cajun, Mexican, and Czech oompa music, and I went to school with people from all three of those cultures as well as second generation Italians. There was even an American Indian in my Boy Scout troop. In Georgia, we would see black women carrying baskets on their heads much like people did in Africa. We'd listen to blacks speaking Gullah in the parks, and on the radio and on records we'd listen to Howlin' Wolf, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Leadbelly. When I was a boy we went to see Risa Stevens sing Carmen when the Met toured San Antonio. My personal choice in music nowadays is baroque opera/oratorios.

I liked my Irish landlady when I lived in Boston as a student. She had a nice brogue. I marched in a large annual St. Patrick's Day Parade in the South. We didn't dye our local river green or have green beer though, but as a marcher I did get squirted with green ink.

I wish nine more years in the South for you. That's the greatest kindness I could do you. Maybe you could enjoy our Cajun, Vietnamese, Thai, Indian, Mexican, Turkish, South and Middle American, French, Italian, Middle Eastern, barbeque, German, Czech, fresh seafood, soul food, etc., restaurants this time around. We even have pizza here though it may not be as good as Chicago pizza.

Cheers.

Maybe I'm wrong but one thing I notice about the South and its people is you don't like change. You don't go for different. When you're home you want everything to be just like you, and get upset when it's not.

It's called cultural coherence, and knowing who you are and who are yours. The French call it eclat. It's a sign you're alive -- even to people who don't like you and find your aliveness dispiriting, because they'd rather you just weren't there.

So maybe that's why I was underwhelmed by the South, too much sameness. Maybe that's why it isn't home and could never be home.

I'm sure educated pan-Germans travelling through the ghettos of fin de siecle Europe felt the same way.

America is beautiful! Its not a north/south thing. The whole country is beautiful! I bet we could find beauty in the deserts of the west if we looked. The difference between the north and south is more of a culture thing than a geographical thing.