I consider myself a Northerner. Northwesterner, to be exact.

I consider myself a Northerner -- a Northwesterner, to be exact. Born in Northern California, I had no clue that I would ever leave that area, until I was suddenly whisked away to live in Jackson, MS. Age 8-1/2, I had no idea until my arrival that things would be any different from California.

But they were!
And things were different again when, 3-1/2 years later, we moved to Kentucky.

And again in nine months when we moved to Missouri.
Then Minnesota.
Then Maryland.
Shall I go on?

Suffice it to say that I finally did get back to California, where I thought I would live, retire, and be buried . . .

Until I ran into the man who would be my husband, who would take me on what Had Better Be My Last Move, Because The Next Move Had Better Be Into the World To Come!

Washington may not be my favorite state, but I'm not moving again!
No, I'm not!
I'm NOT, I'm Not, I'm NOT!

So when my friend suggest this blog, I loved it, but I thought she was going to collect all the data and write it! After all, I have been away from the South long enough that I think Southerners are "cute" and we in the North are just . . . well . . . less colorful, more . . . blah.

Then I thought of my first encounters with Northwesterners after being away for many years.

Now, this was not in California, where people are a little more, uh, let's just call it either knowledgeable or more ready to recognize and be at peace with differences in others. I am not going to name the state or anything, because perhaps that would be mean, but it was north of California and south of Washington, and its beaches are bordered by the Pacific, with Idaho on the other side.

See, I can write all that, because seriously, those in this particular state are basically unaware of anything that is “on the other side of the mountains”! In fact, they won’t even recognize themselves in this little post – seriously! And I am not being mean – this is just a basic truth!

When I first took my children back to my old “stomping grounds” to visit in that particular state, the people would notice our accents and would invariably ask, “Where are you from?” I would respond, “Minneapolis.” Now, my children were also asked where they were from, and being young, they were completely puzzled by these people's responses!

And there was only one set of answers. They were:

5. “Where is that?”
4. “Minneapolis? Is that near Boston?”
3. “That’s way out in the sticks, isn’t it.”
2. “Well, what do you think, being in such a large metropolitan area as Portland?”

And the winner was – drum roll, please! –
1. (spoken with a particularly whangy, bored voice, similar to something that sounded like a profound state of the doldrums . . . ) “Oh. The other side of the mountains.”

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Well, you have definitely already been introduced to some of the differences between Southerners and Northerners -- and you may recognize, also, that there are major differences between Northerners and Northwesterners! While I also lived in the North, I am coming to you now as a Northwesterner. We can tend to be bitingly honest -- or maybe you would call that simply rude! Shall I add crass? I would understand. In future posts, I will try to work on learning manners from my wonderful Southern friend. Perhaps, I will be able to tone it down some and not be so blunt.