On Tiptoeing

Living in Charlotte, North Carolina, I'm—surprisingly—one of the few Southerners I know here. I'm surrounded by neighbors who've moved from the North for (mainly) banking jobs.

In the small Southern town I grew up in, we would have called these folks Yankees. Not in a derogatory way, but more as an explanation. ("She couldn't understand a word I said. She's a Yankee." Or maybe: "A big water bug landed right next to her on the table and she screamed bloody murder! She's not used to bugs...