Y’all just thunk I had me one of them thar accents… I guessed all the accents except the very last one.
And then there is this story wherein I mention a friend of Señora who is the only reason we got together… My Chinese Nightmare
Okeisms – Southernisms
I was more or less raised on the east coast. But I also spent a lot of summers in Oklahoma. Both my parents had rural, agrarian upbringings, one in Kentucky, land of beautiful horses and fast women, and the other in Oklahoma. One of my siblings has described Oklahoma as southern and western, but definitely not southwestern. Under their cowboy hats, Okies definitely operate with a southern sensibility. For many years I was married to a highly educated woman who grew up in the boondocks of Arkansas. She was buried so deep in the pine forests and mountains of rural Arkansas that the first black person she encountered was when she went away to college. She and her mishpocha had a very southern, rural way of speaking. When we would go back to visit her parents, the closer to their home we were, the more country her speech became. The same phenomenon happened the further afield we ranged. Once we were on vacation in New England, and I had to frequently translate for her. The Yankees up there were baffled by her accent, and she, not infrequently, by theirs.
So why I am I bringing this up? Continue reading “Okeisms – Southernisms “
Southern friendly vs. Midwestern friendly
We were out with a group of folks a while back and I made a comment about southern folk being friendly. It was not 
meant to disparage Midwesterners, but one fellow did take slight umbrage. He replied that Midwesterners were friendly too.
All things are relative. Compared to folks in the northeast Midwesterners are extremely friendly. Having lived in all three areas I have some experience with the general friendliness of the denizens of each.
Perhaps the best example I can give would be the golf course. I have lived and played golf in the southern states of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Tennessee. It is not uncommon for me to go to a golf course by my lonesome. In the aforementioned states, I generally did not play by myself very often. Generally if you were a single someone would ask you to join their group. It was acceptable behavior to request to join a group that was smaller than a foursome. In a new area after going to the same course a few times, you tend to bump in the same folks. Pretty soon you have a group of golf buddies. Continue reading “Southern friendly vs. Midwestern friendly”
100 Best Companies to Work For List
I’m not going to mention the company, but I worked two IT contracts at a corporation that is consistently very close to the top the 100 Best Companies to Work For list.
Admittedly, as a contractor I was treated differently than employees. This is not always the case, but it was at this company. Admittedly, I am not your typical corporate type. I have always felt like a square peg in a round hole at these types of companies. Yet I have worked for several Fortune 500 companies over the years.
I was amazed all 3 years I worked at this company that they excelled on this listing. I knew almost no one who seemed genuinely happy with their job. There were a few folks around who were “somebody” or thought they were going to be “somebody”. These folks at least had a sense of purpose. What I observed was a management style of that seemed to me to be intimidation. Maybe it was my Southern sensibilities, but I did not find it a friendly place. The alternately left me for long periods with nothing to do, or with rush projects that were due yesterday. To me it was crazy making. My range of duties was so narrow that it did not give much job satisfaction. From what I observed this was not uncommon.
At one point they made me an offer to come on full time. It was surprising in its low remuneration. I later learned that it was pretty much in line with what the employees were making. Contracting seemed like a much better deal.
I read today a piece on Alternet.org , How Screwing Your Workers Gets You Rated as Top 100 Places to Work. The article is about Darden Restaurants, but it shed much light on how these companies get on this list. Basically, it is very similar to getting yourself on a Who Is Who List. You pay for the privilege. The ranking is not actually by Fortune magazine, but has been outsourced to GPWI.
“There were 11,327 U.S. firms with 1,000 or more employees in 2008, according to the most recent Census Bureau data. In 2012, only 280 of these companies paid GPWI to participate in its best workplace contest”
Suddenly, it all makes sense to me.
A Southern, Jewish Tradition
My Yankee wife has cooked me another traditional Southern meal to bring in the New Year. We had black-eye peas, turnip greens, rice and corn bread. It took a while to get her to cook cornbread the “right” way. First time she served me cornbread I thought it was cake. Now she makes it in a cast iron skillet with yellow cornmeal, and it is not sugary sweet.
Traditionally, black-eye peas are for good luck and greens are to bring wealth. There are more than a few theories about why this combination. The one I like best is “Eat poor on New Year’s, and eat fat the rest of the year.”
One I did not know about is the tradition of black-eye peas dates back 500 years to the Talmud:
“According to a portion of the Talmud written around 500 A.D., it was Jewish custom at the time to eat black-eyed peas in celebration of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It’s possible that the tradition arrived in America with Sephardic Jews, who first arrived in Georgia in the 1730s.”
And as Tevye would say, “Tradition.” Southern, Jewish or otherwise, tradition makes the world go round and helps to keep us grounded.