I used to pull the John Deere to the shoulder to let the cars pass😄

Because, here in TN, I've only once had the farmer pull off the side to let me pass.

Sorry more people are not aware of their environment and considerate to others.

Duh! Even I know this.

lest you be thought of us "stuck-up" or un-neighborly!

I live way out in the sticks. Spring and late summer I allow a good extra half-hour to get to and from work. Out here, farmers don't just have the legal right of way -- they have respect.

And, hey, RMoney, it's "cheese grits", not "cheesy grits". Grits can have cheese. RMoney is cheesy.

Different.

That is the first time I ever heard them referred to as "cheesy" grits. Even the "Yankees" that visit don't call them "cheesy". What a putz.

As for farmers and tractors, it's been a mixed bag. Some pull over. Some don't. A lot of it depends on how wide the shoulder happens to be at that point, and the length of the line of cars.

I live in the country as well (beautiful New England) and I have farms all around me as well. If we come up on a tractor with four ways blinking on the roads, we just pass them, double yellow notwithstanding, as they are technically road hazards at those speeds and we can bypass them under law.

But that's a Yankee thing, y'know.

We got shit to do, places to be. It's the same reason we don't chitchat with the grocery check-out person like they do down south, forever with the fucking slow ass small talk. Fuck all that. Ring me up and let's fuckin' go.

I grew up in the South and moved to the Northwest (with detours to other more Northern climes). When I go back I love changing planes in some place like Atlanta, headed for New Orleans or Jackson, because the whole level of tension goes down. People talk about where they're going, find out they have people in common, invite one another to come visit...they just open up like flowers. I LOVE those grocery store lines. We actually talk about the magazines, say "Bless her heaart" over Whitney or Jessica, talk about the products (I remember spending a few wonderful minutes laughing over the vicissitueds of menopause with a group of women when I admired one's old fashioned funeral parlor fan). I can feel my blood pressure go down and the endorphins flow.

It's wonderful. I got no place to go that won't be better for that having been part of the journey.

We also have chit chat with cashiers. There's this NY City stereotype that gets applied to all Northerners, and it couldn't be more wrong. It has to do with location and comfort. Once you live in a smaller town or village people recognize you and open right up. I chat with the cashiers at the local IGA all the time.

At the same time, there are acceptable instances where you can be rude and ignore someone. The most popular case is with the sales people who walk up to you and try to talk you into getting new gutters or the like. We just walk past them like they are not there because we don't have any interest in their product. Whereas people in other regions have opened themselves to the pitch and now have to back out or decline to get away, I'm happy chit chatting with another customer as I find the stuff I needed.

When we moved from NJ to Maryland 22 years ago, it was a huge culture shock. People around here are too busy to chat with strangers about the price of tomatoes, or strike up conversations with other parents while waiting to pick their kids up after school. It's a cold, unfriendly place. It took a long time for me to make friends here, and most of them turned out to be other lonely ex-Jerseyans.

I love going back to New Jersey for visits and getting into group conversations in diners, etc. We would like to move back there when MadDave retires, but the property taxes are way too high.

that's beautiful.
And i agree 100% with everything else you said.

In my tiny town, it takes 6 minutes to get to the store, but an hour to get OUT of the store, because everybody "chats", from the littlest kid to the oldest geriatric.
There is NO sense of hurry. People are so in the present around here.

One of our neighbors stopped by to apologize for not waving at me as she drove past my car ....two days previously.!!!!

"I just didn't want you to think that I was ignoring you, I had my mind on remembering what I needed to stop for when I got to the main road, and I am SO sorry for not waving hi to you".

true story.

I have spent time in every northeastern city. The difference between a norteastern big city and any southern city is that people mind their own business in the northeast, in addition to being better educated and wealthier. I have never needed directions, or advice and been refused those curtesies in northeastern cities. I have sat in diners and had many pleasant and enjoyable conversations with fellow northeast residents. The only sensation that I get when I have to go into the south is the urge to get the fuck out of there as quickly as possible. The climate is stale, most of the people ignorant, and the food is mostly bad and greasy. BTW, I don't give a shit for grits of any flavor and I don't speak bad english like "y'all".

You don't know shit about the South.

Bless your heart.

"Bless your heart' da southern equivalent of f__k you.

It needs to be BANNED from DU

Yup, to some of us the journey is as important or more important than anything. I love my fellow Okies

of this state, the people, even the Republicans and the rednecks are kind and generous.

is for Romney to pander to it.

Now the South is the holiest place in the world.

I hope Romney keeps pandering...I get sick of the South hatred.

I'm from the deep deep deep south originally. I know its faults inside and out, and they are many. But there are many good things about where I'm from, and many good people live in the south.

There are good and bad people everywhere.

We have been shown the lives of the north on TV and in movies ad nauseum. Everyone knows about the north. A lot of the people who make movies and TV are from the north, after all. But the north doesn't seem to understand the south very well.

Before the yanks start condemning the south for the KKK and all the other things the south is supposedly saddled with, they should consider that the KKK headquarters in the country was INDIANA, which to us southerners is yankee territory. There are bad people everywhere.

(BTW, there's an excellent made for TV movie about the downfall of the KKK. It was about the leader headquartered in Indiana. He and others took some good girl on a train and repeatedly raped her. This was back in the day when rape ruined a girl's life. The black porter saw what was going on, but of course could do nothing. She ended up drinking some poison. The KKK guys took her in their car, while she was puking and suffering, and ended up dropping her off somewhere. She ended up back home somehow and suffered a days-long agonizing death as the poison ate her insides. During that time she was dying, she told the full story to someone, who wrote it all down. The KKK chief was brought to trial, and when all the facts came out - even the black porter testified - about the poor girl's torture and agonizing death, he was found guilty, and the KKK fell into ruin because they were of course fake. They were just another group of hatemongering thugs. The kicker was that the KKK chief has a suitcase full of papers proving the corruption of many famous leaders in the state...he'd been blackmailing them for years. He released all that, and many lives were rightfully ruined. Good movie.)

but it gets me riled up when non-southerners trash it, even when they say things i might have said myself or another southerner might have said without making me mad.

I see it all the time, but for some reason it doesn't count. For your info, I was born and grew up in the south, but moved to Conn. after college for work. I also have a high tolerance for cold, so i wanted to move north and experience the four seasons. Since then I've fallen in love with New England and may very well spend my life here. Once you understand the culture, you find that you fit right in.

Some Dallasites like to think they are southern, but to me, Dallas is clearly like the west, and technically it's teh southwest.

I fit in fine here, and I think I'd fit in fine anywhere, except maybe in really rural backwoods areas, south OR north. I've travelled to the northeast for business, and I think I'd fit in fine there. People are people everywhere. There are cultural differences, but human nature is the same everywhere.

The northeast is more up on current things, like fashion. When I lived in the deep south, we were aware that we lagged behind the yanks in that. Even in hte deep south, though, there are liberals and less conservative people. They are even, some people, less bigoted than yanks I've run across. Bill O'Reilly and Limpballs, for example, are not from the deep south.

The big one is obviously the north is not all liberal. My nearest neighbor on one side is a Tea party member and on the other side he's supports Ron Paul. The big Yankee difference is that we know each others politics and still have affable discussions. We do not hate each other because of our political views.

In some ways, rural Connecticut shares a lot of traits with other rural regions, including a fondness for hunting and firearms. When we lost power for a week after the storms last year we all helped each other out just like they do in the Midwest.

I agree - Human nature is the same everywhere.

I'm tired of it. The Civil war ended over 150 years ago. I wish people would stop fighting it already. I was born and raised in the Midwest, which is apparently "The North" to some. I went to grad school in the South, and took a job here after I graduated. I have also lived out West during parts of my life. Not everyone in the "North" is rude and impatient. And, Southerners certainly do not have a monopoly on being "laid bacK", or being friendly and polite. And, I've had it up to my eyeballs with the term "Chicago-style politics". Anywhere else, they're called "good old boys". It's the old "My shit don't stink." mentality. As was pointed out elsewhere in this thread, there are assholes and there are decent people wherever you go.

Southerners trash the north on DU. Nor do I encounter Southerners doing it in real life. For that matter I never heard northerners trash the south in real life - and I lived for a little less than a year in New Jersey. I have read a good bit of south bashing here on du and I'm guessing that if I went to a right wing board I might very well encounter Southerners bashing the north. I think it is a red state blue state knee jerk kinda thing and doesn't represent how the vast majority of Southerners or Northerners do or would treat each other in the real world.