In the South

I'm currently with Stella in Greensboro, NC, visiting with her family. Although this is technically "The South", it's not the southern experience one might imagine. Being near a University of NC campus, it's actually fairly liberal; walking around I see enough Obama signs and stickers, plus the occasional Grateful Dead sticker, that I don't feel too out of place coming from San Francisco. However, I just had a little encounter that reminded me that I am, in fact, in "The South." Of course, this actually could have happened anywhere, but I'd like the view it as a "southern experience."

I wanted to take a little walk to a nearby drugstore, and since it's quite cold out and my winter coat is in my still-missing luggage (that's a story for another blog post), I borrowed Stella's grandfather's army jacket. A real army-issued jacket. I'm guessing he served sometime around WWII, but I'm not sure.

On the way out of the store, I'm chatted up by a local. He's very blue-collar looking with some very noticeable silver teeth in his crooked smile, speaking with a thick southern drawl. We'll call him Blue-Collar Silver-Teeth Guy (BCSTG). I had two dialogs going with him, one in my head, the other spoken out loud. It went something like this:

[BCSTG]: It's a cluster-fuck out there, huh?
[Me, internal thought process]: I don't know what cluster-fuck you are speaking of; everything outside this store appears normal to me. I'll just politely agree.
[Me, spoken]: Yeah, man, it sure is.

[BCSTG] (Noticing my army jacket): Was you in the army?
[Me, internal thought process]: No, I'm part of the educated liberal elite in San Francisco. I wear this jacket as an ironic statement; a symbol of the imperialism and suffering our crypto-fascist government is spreading throughout the middle east specifically, and the world at large in general.
[Me, spoken]: No, man, it belonged to my grandfather.

[BCSTG]: I like the jacket anyway.
[Me, spoken]: Thanks, man. Later.