Impressions of a Northwesterner in the Deep South

A comparison.

The first day we moved into our house in Alabama, our neighbor popped over with a chicken pot pie and the key to her house. She was a lovely, stylish, classy woman—as put-together as a wedding cake.

In contrast, I had a messy bun, sweats, and ugly slippers—the kind you buy at a store that sells wool socks and kayaks—and I’m pretty sure I had smeared mascara.

In other words, a Southerner and a Northwesterner.

It reminds me of the day a few months later when I had to pick my daughter up from day camp. I thought it was a drive-through, don’t-get-out-of-the-car kind of pickup. I was sick that day and wore a similar getup, along with my bright red sporting-goods-store slippers. There may have been stains on my T-shirt.

In the Northwest, this would’ve been perfectly normal. But in the South, it meant facing the long walk of shame to the pickup counter. I think I cried a little.

In my defense, it’s not that I care so much about my appearance. I’m an introvert, which means I value keeping a low profile almost more than my life. Don’t notice me, and in return for your kindness, I won’t notice you.

(For the record, God rarely lets me get away with that.)

Back to the chicken pot pie. My kids had never even heard of it. On the one hand, it had pie in the name—a point in its favor. But open it up, and inside? Veggies. To them, this seemed like some kind of sick joke.

When my son tasted it, however, his life underwent a revolutionary change. He was in love.

You might say it was his first taste of the South.

More Than a Meal

While we’re on the topic of food, I had better not mention fried catfish, jambalaya, southern fried chicken, and Southern barbecue.

In the Northwest, barbecue means meat on the grill with optional barbecue sauce. That’s not what it means here. Here, it’s an art form. A language. Don’t try it if you don’t live here. Life without it would be a blank.

Southerners like dressing things up. They enflesh, enrich, adorn. They take the longer, slower road to get there—like soaking chicken in buttermilk overnight, like tea leaves in the sunshine, like the stockpot at a low country boil.

They’ve been at it longer, aging like wine, distilling like whiskey.

“We eat to celebrate and we eat to mourn. And when we go to town, we eat like they just made it legal.”
—A Southern poet ¹

The Northwest Way

Where I’m from, we’re only a few generations removed from the pioneers. Our style of living is spare, sturdy, and practical. It confirms what I’ve long suspected: the Northwest is where all the real grown-ups live. The people who floss every day and get snow tires on in early November.

Not the sort who forget to take their snow tires off and drive across the entire country while moving to Alabama. Not sure who would do such a thing.

Garages are another thing. In the Northwest, most homes are garage-oriented. So, there’s a garage—three-car if you’re lucky—and a bit of house tucked discreetly on it.

I tried explaining this to some Southerners recently. They didn’t get it. When we moved to Alabama, we assumed there were no residential garages. Later, we discovered they’re just hidden—tucked under the house. And even then, they’re dressed up to look like part of the house, as un-garage-like as possible.

There’s some excuse for Northerners. When it snows ten months out of the year (my husband says that’s an exaggeration, but I stand by it), you need easy access to snow shovels and driveway salt.

But really, it’s deeper. The Northwesterner’s obsession with practicality and efficiency is an identity. A creed.

Jim Gaffigan nailed it:

“In the entire Pacific Northwest, everyone’s dressed like there could be an impromptu hike at a moment’s notice.” Someone might say: “Well, I’m going for a coffee, but you never know when a hike might break out.”

A Note on Generalizations

Some disclaimers: I’m no expert on the South. These are the impressions of an outsider looking in and not quite catching the language.

Additionally, my point is not to declare a winner between regions. Point for point, they are mirror opposites. I could easily write a different piece, making a different case.

Yes, I’m generalizing. There are exceptions in every direction.

But I believe both cultures could learn a lot from each other. We’ve had the chance to live in several regions of the country, and I know from experience: “learning from each other” doesn’t happen often. Each place has tunnel vision. One culture’s creed is surfboards, another’s hiking boots, another’s football. Each is its own kind of religion.

Southerners Are Talkers

I had to show up for a medical procedure at 5 a.m. recently. If I’m awake at that hour, then there is a disturbance in the universe. It’s just offensive.

On top of that, the waiting room was full—and everyone was talking. Loudly. Laughing. Gabbing. As if it were a Sunday afternoon on the back porch. It hurt my feelings.

In the NW, people don’t talk while waiting at the doctor’s office. Maybe a whisper to a companion—but never across the room to perfect strangers, like you all grew up going to the same church potlucks.

I mentioned this recently during a class I taught at my church. In response, a woman shared her story: She took a flight from Alabama to Washington with a layover midway. On the first leg, passengers talked and chatted up to three rows back. On the second, bound for Washington, the plane was as silent as a funeral.

Why Southerners Talk

Maybe there’s a reason Southerners talk. Maybe there’s a reason they keep their conversations long and their fried chicken hot.

“The Southerner, whose mother tongue is warm with color and thick with idioms, is weaned on poesis… This is the ultimate meaning of poetry. To make things out of words. Sometimes a mess. Sometimes a living. Sometimes a world that we would all be thrilled to inhabit.”

In the Northwest, we tend to strip life to bare bones. To raw, unvarnished wood. We call it being real, practical, unpretentious.

Southerners, on the other hand, add flesh. They take mere words and make poetry.

“Southern talkers are quotable because they are natural poets. What is native to poetry comes readily to Southerners. If you boil it all the way down to the bone, poetry is the habit of seeing a thing and saying what it looks like in a way that fastens all the meat back onto the skeleton. It is the art of noticing, the science of describing.”

What’s the Point?

A Northwesterner might look at the South—at the non-garage-oriented houses, extra time spent chatting in checkout lines, the women in summery skirts at carpool, the patient slowness of doing something just it tastes good—and ask:

What’s the point?
What are you getting out of this?
What’s the tread on those hiking boots?
How does this help pay the bills?

Why waste time telling so many lovely stories with all that you do?

To that, a Southerner might say—as one once did:

“My sweet summer child, the story is the point.”

1. This, along with three of the following quotes, is taken from an article written by a previous Substack blogger. He is no longer on Substack but his blog was called Poiema. Let me know if you would like a copy of the article I quoted from.