1. Food
To say that Southerners like their fried food is like saying dogs like treats. Anything and everything that can be fried is. Barbeque is everywhere and available with the customary sides including collard greens. Collards remain a mystery to me. It’s spinach like substance drowned with a faint ham flavoring. Grits are served with cheese and instructions. “Now you gotta put salt, pepper, and hot sauce to make ‘em just right.” Or edible. Livers and gizzards are regular menu items at fried chicken shacks. Much like eating Rocky Mountain Oysters is an understandable thing in the West, chewing the equivalent of chicken bubblegum in the gizzard is also par for the course. The portions are generous and there’s always a wink and smile to go with your meal.
However, finding good Mexican food is like trying to find a snowflake in the Sahara. The burritos and chimichangas are covered in a white cheese sauce that congeals to the consistency of caulk. Smothering a burrito is a foreign concept and asking for such is followed by vacant stares, much akin to asking someone without a watch what time it is in Shanghai. The one restaurant that I’ve found that knows what smothering a burrito is (covering the burrito with green chili) has the temerity to only have vegan green chili. When I asked the server why it was that way, she replied “What would we serve our vegetarian and vegan customers?” Um, their own batch?
2. Hospitality
Southerners are extremely friendly. Some of this may be passive aggressiveness (I’ve since learned that bless his little heart is the same as calling someone a moron), but most of it is genuine. A smile and the ubiquitous phrase of, “How y’all doing today” rings out more than once a day. They also go out of their way to tell you about landmarks and times past. I’ve been lucky enough to have a virtual tour guide tell me about regions, neighborhoods and warn me about summer.
3. Sidewalks
The South doesn’t believe in sidewalks on side streets and the streets are really narrow. Once the roads were paved and finished that was it. Occasionally a fresh coat of asphalt is applied, but that’s about it.
4. Schedules
Everything is slower in the South. Schedules are often just suggestions. Buses can be early, late or they don’t come at all. Civic improvements always require a toe in the water before leaping in with their ankle
5. Critters
There are a lot of critters in Florida. A LOT. Lizards are as common as grasshoppers. There are hundreds of types of birds of all colors. I never knew that cardinals and blue jays actually existed outside of baseball. My first wildlife find was an armadillo that was squished on the side of the road and in the true Southern tradition it was left there to eventually rot. Possums look like rats with a steroid problem. While my paranoia about ‘gators was unfounded, they do exist. I haven’t had many cockroaches at my place (only one of at this writing) but people have warned me about them, especially the aggressive German variety. Germans being aggressive… who knew? Did I mention the lizards?
6. College Football
One of the reasons that pro football has such a hard time in Jacksonville is the lunacy over College Football. You’re a Gator, a Nole or a Dawg… or a Tide or a Tiger/War Eagle. Flags are perched in front of houses on game day or year round. Your college affiliation is one of the first questions asked at a sports bar. My reply of Colorado State is met with either quizzical looks or apologies. “Sorry, man. That must suck,” or “That’s too bad,” are common replies. My observations are that Gator fans are smug and overconfident, Seminole fans are defeatist and hopeful at the same time, and Georgia fans are invisible unless their team is doing well.
7. Weather
Summer is hot. REALLY HOT. As in so oppressive that Floridians become mole people during it. So hot that people apologize for it. But in the meantime, you don’t have to shovel heat or rain.
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