Southern Hospitality

I've lived in Illinois now for 7 1/2 years. That's 7 1/2 years longer than I ever expected. My husband and I moved here in November of 2001 when his job transferred us to this area....this area being O'Fallon, IL which is about 20 minutes from downtown St. Louis. Good place to be if you don't want to live in the big city and would prefer to skip all that crazy traffic yet, still close enough to be able to attend big city events like baseball games, concerts, and art shows. Anyway, like I said I never actually thought we'd be here for this long but life happens and here we are...still.

I've actually gotten used to the area and I've had the opportunity to make some amazing friends. Friends that would be EXTREMELY hard to leave if and when we decide to move back home to Arkansas. Since I've gotten to know the area better I'm more comfortable and it's really grown on me. I owned a business here for 3 1/2 years which gave me the opportunity to meet a lot of people and learn more about the town I live in. There are still a lot of things I miss about Arkansas that I don't find here but for the most part I really enjoy my life here now. I just have one complaint that I don't think I'll EVER get used to.....the lack of Southern Hospitality.

When your born and raised in the South, especially in a town like Fayetteville, AR, you get spoiled with polite conversation and encounters with kind, agreeable people. As a matter of fact, you come to expect certain things. For example, people smiling and waving for no reason, employees in local shops being helpful and all around pleasant, and hearing "hi ya'll" every time you turn the corner. Nice, cordial people being nice and cordial for no reason at all. Just because.

I miss these people. Not to say that I don't have good people in my life here because I do. As I said before I have amazing friends (to all of my friends reading this please don't be offended...of course I'm not talking about you). It's the people you don't know that can really get under your skin. In the Mid-West if they don't know you, they don't see any point in wasting a smile on you. Or, if they are nice to you up front I've learned that it's not necessarily because they want to be but because they need to be for selfish reasons. Many a time I've been fooled by the up-front-nice-guy that later turned on me. It's baffling. All the sudden it's like that girl on The Exorcist...head's spin and an evil comes out that you didn't know existed. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a teeny bit but I'm always a little thrown by how quickly someone here has stabbed me in the back without batting an eyelash. I guess that's just what happens in business. At least in the South we mask it with charm and civility leaving the victim with a false sense of accomplishment. We wouldn't want them to walk away hating us afterall! (said with a southern accent)

Having a couple of friends from the South helps. They understand how I feel about certain things and we can easily talk about how different things are around here. For example, my friend from Alabama understands SEC football and how it's actually a religion in the South. Not a sport. People schedule things like weddings and parties around football games. If you plan your wedding on the same day as an Arkansas Razorback football game then that's your problem when no one shows up. Comply with the rules of the South or get over it! I also have a friend from Texas. Every event we go to with the girls seems to reveal some sort of Mid-Western ritual we've never seen. We just look at our other friends and say, "We don't do that in the South" (tip head and stick nose in the air here). At this point I should just consider myself lucky that my Mid-West girlfriends haven't disowned me considering I always talk about how great everything is below the Mason-Dixon line.

Thanks girls for putting up with my Southern banter!! Love ya'll (yes, I said ya'll)!!