I would never call him my “best friend” to his face. I am from Massachusetts and he is from Connecticut, and New Englanders do not say things like that. “Yankee ingenuity” means the canny improvised fixes, repairs, and craftwork our predecessors employed to keep their barns and brains intact through long winters without ever having to break down and ask anyone else for help. Shame, embarrassment, and crippling emotional reticence is what this part of our nation was founded on, at least the white part, and Jonathan and I adhere to this legacy.