Date:  Fri, 28 Oct 1994 05:01:00 EDT

From:  "David A. Johns" <DJOHNS[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UFPINE.BITNET>

Subject: The Southland



# I sympathize with David Johns and his encounters with the term

# "Yankee". My mother, from Wisconsin, married my native-Georgian

# father in 1945, and Waycross was her first point of entry into

# the South. She never did find any humor in her new relatives'

# "Damn Yankee" jokes. But as David's comment about how people

# show no embarrassment or hesitation about asking, "Are you a

# Yankee?" suggests, the resentment toward Northerners is really

# fairly shallow (in my experience).



Hmmm ... maybe, but I've been taking it as an indication of how

comfortable southerners are with social stratification. People of

inferior station know their place, so there's no reason not to talk

about it openly.



# Certainly, I've known Northerners who assimilated fairly rapidly

# and painlessly into Southern life.



True, although to me it's like living in a city, where you can always

find people who share your values, no matter how aberrant they are.

But unlike cities, where "virtual communities" seem to be more

compartmentalized, here your life seems to be much more intertwined

with people who see you as something between an alien and an enemy.



David Johns

Waycross, GA