I was born in Queens, NY. I grew up in Sunnyside. I lived in an apartment on Barnett Avenue between 44th and 45th street. I attended PS 150. I was a Queens kid that thankfully became a Yankees fan and not a Mets fan. My family moved across the Hudson to New Jersey where I lived until I was 27. I still loved New York City. I worked at the World Financial Center for four years and visited Manhattan often.
Then I moved south.
To Florida. Many people say that Florida is not “the south” and in many areas that is true, but it is definitely not the northeast no matter how many NY/NJ transplants live down there. Three years ago I moved to the Atlanta area. I live on the border of Woodstock in the city of Canton. I am 35 miles from downtown Atlanta yet less than a mile from my house you can drive past farms with goats, cows and horses all grazing in pastures.
I love the south. I will always have NYC in my blood and love going back there but I can honestly say I have no wish to move back to the northeast.
Everything you have heard that is good about the south is true.The people are very friendly and welcoming. The climate is great (Yeah it gets disgustingly humid here in Atlanta but by the end of September you can open the windows up as the heat will have dissipated). The cost of living is so much better than it is up north and you’re going to pay less in taxes (No income taxes if you live in FL). If you want to protect yourself with a firearm or just want to use one for sport shooting, it doesn’t take signing over half your life to get one.
My brother, the Obama loving fool that he is, used to mock me for living down here as he kept his blue rear end in New Jersey long after I left. But now he’s engaged and living in Louisiana and absolutely loves it. He’s still stupid enough not to like Bobby Jindal and said he is going to vote for Hillary but hey….it’s a start.
I’m not going to go into how southerners drive because that would just have me go off on a tangent that would be very ugly.
On the flip side, so much of the negative side of what you’ve heard of the south is largely false. Northern liberal elites whose only time spent in the south is getting a connecting flight in Atlanta, would have you believe the south is still a hotbed of racism that existed in the 1950′s and 1960′s with Bull Connor types lurking about in every small town from North Carolina to Mississippi.
Naturally, there is racism in the south. No more so however, than I have seen in the north. I heard far more racial slurs being spouted by people living in progressive blue states than I ever have since living down here. Yes, there is the occasional white trash lowlife riding around with his confederate flag somewhere on his pickup truck and hoping one day that south will rise again, but these idiots exist in a vacuum. They overwhelmingly represent a bygone era.
It’s no surprise that leftists almost seem to be upset by what happened in the aftermath of the horrific murders committed at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Others were blown away in surprise at what happened.
The only people not surprised are those who actually live in the south.
Contrary to the cartoon-character type Christians most on the left want Christians to be, the notion of grace and mercy is something that runs strong in the Christian faith. Forgiveness is nothing new to Christians. So when family members of those murdered by Dylann Hood offered their forgiveness to him, it was great to see, but it certainly was not surprising.
Also, race baiting charlatans like Al Sharpton and Deray McKesson found there was nothing they could exploit when they arrived in Charleston. Why? Because people in that city and state – both white and black – showed a unity in the midst of crisis that didn’t fit the narrative of what we have seen. There were no riots. There was no looting. There was no need for the National Guard.
Dylann Roof’s goal was to start a race war. He failed.
Instead what we saw was a community truly coming together regardless of race to show a kind of unity that had many people shocked and some on the left spitting in near anger at their moronic stereotypes being completely obliterated.
And nobody down here was surprised.
The south is my home. And I’m damned proud of that.