I started this blog on the bus from Newport to Providence over a year ago. The title is a little Samuel Clemonsish, but as I thought about the singularity of my situation, I realized that my perspective might be unique. In Oklahoma, there are many pejoratives for outsiders: Papists, east coast liberals, pinkos, etc, but I am afraid the term "Yankee" seems to conjure up all kinds of people who act in a snobbish, high-falutin' way, and use their culture and education as a club. As many before me have stated, we hate and fear what we do not know and understand, and it is easy to attach a name to those emotions.
When did an accent become the measure of a person? My parents are both well-spoken people, and I believe the cadence and timbre of their voices would never place them geographically. Everywhere I have lived, people always have asked me where I was from, after hearing me speak. You would think in Texas an Oklahoma accent would sound similar, but I was asked repeatedly there about my origins (though, of course in Texas, the next question is "what church do you go to", but that is another entry!). The Bay Area, where I lived for 15 years, is a huge melting pot-just about everyone there is from somewhere else. Accents are welcomed, and even a source of delight in person-but as soon as some yahoo from the south or Oklahoma (sorry, Okies, Oklahoma is NOT the south), gets some television airtime, they are considered about the dumbest most illiterate people on the planet. A Massachusetts accent is different from a Rhode Islander, but there is a common thread. They drop their Rs and then place them where they should not be. For example, I had the front end of my car repaired, and the mechanic told me they were just waiting on my "pots"...I finally got that he meant "parts." My name has turned into "Suzanner", and you get the idea. I find myself slipping into the same thing, though I still say "buuuter" instead of "buttah".
As a musician, I am very taken with sound and color, so this will continue to amaze and astound me at how a culture is expressed through language. Next is food: cabinets, stuffies, chowdah and the like. Yee haw
