Growing up, I never put much thought into how various regions of the country were different from one another. I grew up in Wichita, Kan., and in St. Joseph, Mo., which are both considered to be part of the Midwest. I felt like the way everyone dressed, the things we did and our way of life was fairly similar to everyone else’s. Never did I think I was missing out until I came to the South.
The first thing I noticed here was the way people dressed. Granted, the town I lived in was kind of small, so we didn’t have a lot of things to dress up for or many places to shop, but the definition of “looking nice” was totally different.
When my guy friends in high school were going to an event, looking nice meant a pair of cargo shorts and a Hollister graphic T-shirt — it was even a stretch for them to wear Abercrombie. At Harding, and in the South in general, boys wear nice khaki shorts and dress shirts on a regular basis. That has been a nice change for me.
Beyond noticing how other people were different, I felt everyone noticed I was different, too. It was like everyone else always knew what people were referring to except for me. I had never had a glass of sweet tea before, and most people were beside themselves trying to wrap their minds around that. I had my first taste of it at McAlister’s and have been addicted ever since.
It seemed like everyone and their mother, literally, had vacationed in Destin, Fla., a place that I couldn’t even point out on a map. As it turned out, I went to Destin with some friends for my first spring break, and now I wish my family had gone there while I was growing up, too.
While my style has drastically changed since I arrived freshman year, and I have slowly let the word “y’all” creep into my vocabulary, the one thing I will never budge on is using the word “pop.”
I have gotten into my share of arguments with people from various states about whether the correct term is soda, pop, Coke or even soda pop. I have come to find that it is my biggest issue with people from the South — you cannot refer to all pop as Coke. Coke is one drink. There are not different kinds of Coke, unless you are referring to diet or regular. So Southern people take note: On this, you are wrong, and as many things as I have compromised on, I just cannot comply.
Now don’t get me wrong, I loved growing up in the Midwest, and there are things I did there that I will never stop doing or habits I formed that I will never break, but I am slowly becoming more like a Southern girl and am proud of it.
