East Coast Tension

Through the years I've travelled all across this great country of ours and I've become convinced of one thing - people on the East coast are wound tighter than a golf ball.

The reason I've made this brilliant discovery is because everywhere I go people tell me that. My tour guide through Omaha was the latest to bring it up.

"You people are high-strung," he said. "We aren't quite as intense out here. We have a good work ethic, but man, we aren't so confrontational."

Perhaps it may have been me, but later I got to thinking about it. When I worked in California there were days when half the crew wouldn't come back from lunch because the sun was shining and the beer was cold. That wouldn't play so well out here.

When I visited North Carolina for work, it was hard for the labor force to even show up on any given day. I remember asking one guy about it and he said, "When I get up some mornings I don't know if I'm going fishing or going to work."

Yet it seems that the general feeling in this neck of the woods is that things need to be done - and now dammit!

During my stops in a new town I often wonder what it would be like to set up a life in such an area. Truth be told, everywhere else seems a little slow to me.

"I love it here," one of the secretaries said in Omaha. "I don't even mind tornado season."

"Tornado season?" I asked in disbelief.

"Yeah when we know one is coming we secure everything, put together a party, and then follow the storm. My husband likes to video tape it as it comes in."

My exact response was, "Boy you people need a bowling alley or something."

My internal response was that the lady and her friends were a little off.

Yet that is the gist of the blog - everyone else looks to the East and believes that our ways are a bit too regimented.

Perhaps - it's about 45 degrees today on the last day of September. Maybe we are all so bitter and mean because the weather does it to us. Perhaps it's the New York City energy that we feed off.

In any regard I'll take it over chasing a tornado with my camcorder.

Comments

Andrea Renee said…
Yeah, I was accepting of it, too. Until I moved to California!! It's funny - I was just noticing how it seems to be more relaxed here... =)

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