an exercise for a creative writing class. the assignment had been to include as many regional characterizations as possible. in my case that ended up being "southernisms".
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A family of New Yawkuhs stopped at the little general store just down the way from my house while I was filling up. Jimbo was at the register entertaining their questions, and himself at their expense.
Jimbo's store epitomizes the deep south, in a place so deep that Seven Eleven, Circle K, Lil' General and even the Piggly Wiggly chains don't go there. There's a screen door on the entrance with a rusty spring so it will swing shut after you walk though so the flies won't get in. His ol' dawg, Turd Blossom, is always snoozin' by the counter. Maybe growing up there accounts for my affinity for Andy of Mayberry despite the cardboard characters who never held a candle to the assortment passing through Jimbo's front door.
Palatka is farm country. Employment's down except for at the Hudson paper mill which I never fail to use for sake of an accusation of flatulence when driving with someone in the car.
"Roll the window down for chrissake, will you? Have a little common decency..."
"It wasn't me" they always plead.
"I'm afraid thou dost protesteth too loudly" is then my stock reply.
Big o'l redneck farm boys make for great football teams for such a small town. The larger towns of 20,000+ always dreaded playing us.
My brother-in-law is a real estate broker and tells many a tale of consortiums of slick New York investors who come down armed with conveniently self-serving views of the south as some kine of furrin' cuntry, with everything ripe for the pickin'.
They lose their shirts.
I'd been outside long enough while they were pumping to hear the smug "marryin' cousins" and "can't wait til we get back to civilization" jokes which really don't go over well in the deep south and FL is the deep south, Miami and the rest of South Florida notwithstanding. The stock reply is that if New York is so nice then "why don't you go back?"
Anyway, the entire family was talkin' to Jimbo at the register, two pasty white kids with blank stares in tow. Evidently they'd been eat up by skeeters, scratching in all sorts of places.
The wife had picked up a package of grits and asked what it was.
"Insect repellant" said Jimbo, without looking up from the register.
"Does it work?" asked the husband hopefully, optimistically entertaining the possibility that he'd stumbled onto some southern voodoo folk remedy, a closely held cultural secret, a rare find to share with friends back home.
"Well, we all use it and we ain't never been bit" answered Jimbo, ever the prankster.
"Gladys, stock up." ordered the husband.
They left. Jimbo and I had some yucks, I over my yoo-hoo and moon pie and he while sucking on a plug of Days Work, as we imagined them rubbing the grainy meal all over their bodies.
That Jimbo can be downright evil sometimes. He twisted around and let fly with a brown glob of tobacco spit, paused, took a deep breath and started what I knew was going to be start of a heartfelt soliloquy. This was his trademark windup for a meaningful revelation. I'd seen it before.
"Maybe I shouldn't a dun it but I jes couldn't help myself. The second they cross the state line up at Valdosta they start a litany of whinin' that doesn't stop til they get back to the Bronx. They cocoon themselves in stress and superiority and never ask nicely or say please and thank you like normal folks. They just demand and snap. They might be nice people if there was a way to get to know 'em but ya never know til ya sit down and eat a pound of salt with 'em."
"Huh? I'd never eat a pound of salt with 'em, or really anyone else." I scowled thinking that maybe Jimbo wasn't the brightest bulb in the pack himself.
"That's what I'm sayin'" imparted Jimbo patiently.
Maybe ol' Jimbo had a point.
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