THE NORTH

When we think of El Norte, what do we think? Coal? Tweed? Blowing into ones hands after coming inside from a blustery Cambridge Nor'easter and smiling knowingly at our be-turtlenecked fiance who already has our skim chai latte with hand-grated nutmeg ready for us?

I'm sure all those and more.

But you're wrong. There is no "The North." At least not since about 1892. Allow me to opine:

I'm from the midwest, as you know. This means, according to some, that I've grown up on a farm, have a keen sense of the weather at all times, and know how much a gallon of gas cost in 1998. I do. 87 cents at one point. Look it up.

As such, I have no interest in the North/South debate, except to note that the "North" is merely anything "Not the South" and includes Texas and California by most peoples' approximations. This is geographically confusing. Let's see if google image search can help.

...It did not.

But having lived in the traditional North a little while, I can relay the following things that were said:

"Anything south of Elizabeth (NJ) is the South."

"Virginia is Alabama with a tent."

All this apparently is with the understanding that Northerners are more tolerant, clean, and industrious people while Southerners are backwards and lazy. These are of course eternal truths, eternal as the truth that the silver light of the moon sends young maidens into fits of lust. I've seen it happen.

But the insidious thing is victor's/victim's syndrome. People from the North assuming its better because they won the war over slavery federalism 150 years ago, and people from the South saying it's gonna rise again. These are fringes on both sides, but these attitudes persist. Read this book for an interesting bit of sociology.

Really all it is - regionalism. Everybody's a little proud of where they're from, and your region is kinda like your little brother. YOU can pick on him, but nobody else can, because he's your little brother.

Sure, most industry is in the North, but presidents come from the South. There's a lot of political corruption everywhere, but machine politics were a purely Northern phenomenon. But the South has Bojangles. What does this tell us? I have no idea, but I guarantee that the worst Nor'easter has got nothing on an average Alberta Clipper. Midwest represent!