The guy would not shut up. He was standing in the kitchenware isle of our local thrift store, in a sleepy southern town nestled on the banks of the White Oak River on the coastal plain of the Tar Heel state. Three little kids were leafing through Dr. Seuss books. Frail, gray-haired grandmas dug through used linens. A young college girl picked up a T-fal skillet.
The man was railing against the South. He was a Yankee, A New Yorker by birth and a jerk by nature. In a loud, boisterous voice the condescending carperbagger did an impression of a southerner.
“There’s a Opossum in the gum tree, maw. Get me a gun and I’ll shoot’ um fer supper”. To a passerby he yelled, “Every hick down here has a truck bed full of empty beer cans, a shotgun, a fishing pole, and a welfare check in his hip pocket. Lazy motherf&#@ers. No wonder you lost the war!”
A mother collected her kids and left. The fine southern grandmas worked their walkers toward the front door. Most of the customers ignored him. Just another displaced Yankee with an attitude. We see it all the time.
Now, don’t get me wrong. My maw’s a Yankee. She spent the first 25 years of her life in the Bronx. Half my aunts and cousins are from up north. Most of them live here now, and some of them had a hard time adjusting to the culture shock.
When I told my Uncle Pete (an octogenarian Italian who moved here thirty years ago from the Bronx) about the guy in the thrift, he laughed and said, “Them damn Yankees are ruining the South.”
Maw said the same thing.
