Originally written: April 14, 2011.
Before coming here to Kansas, my direction skills included: turn left, turn right, go 3.5 miles until you see the chicken house, go to the big tree and turn right, etc. Now that we are in Kansas, directions and direction giving and receiving are kicking my tail. On a side note: There are NO chicken houses on which to base directions…or big trees. While in Georgia, I thought that I had pretty good direction skills. I felt that I could usually figure out where I was going, and what direction we were in. I also had good map finding skills. But, Kansas is a little different. Well, maybe a foreign country. One would think that it would be hard to get lost in an almost square state with just square mile roads. BUT, one would be wrong…especially that “one” being me. I haven’t gotten lost YET. But I feel it coming. All the directions here are given as follows: “we are 8 miles east of 281.” Or “go 2 miles west, then 1 mile north, we are in the first section south.” What?!? I’m constantly translating in my head, like a tourist does while in a foreign country. Also, the road names are always to the person’s right. I mean east… or north of the car…or…whatever. They are only one side of the road at each intersection. Also, I’ve figured out that street names that have the word avenue tend to run north/south. If a street name ends with the word “street”, the road will go east/west. BUT while in town, all “figures” are completely off, because, well, you are in town of course.
It was a blessed relief last week when a former southerner gave me directions to a local park. “When coming into town, go three streets past Main Street. Remember to look over to the other side of the road to find Pine Street. Turn Right on Pine (yes..I did a mini hallelujah here). Go to the end or until it turns into dirt. It ends in a parking lot”. I was smiling. I didn’t have to work with North, South, East, and West. No translating in my head. It was a relief.
Before coming to Kansas, a fellow box stater sent me these helpful hints.
Three things for you to keep in mind as you move to KS:
– you will be officially living in ‘SWK’ (southwest Kansas). There is a certain amount of pride that comes with that, or so I’ve seen from the animal science kids at K-State from SWK.
– People are going to fall all over themselves when you speak and ask that you please keep speaking. They love the accent. 🙂
– It’s going to be windy – a lot
You didn’t see anything about directions on the list, did you? Nope. It’s not there. So, I wasn’t totally prepared when people started using north, south, east, and west. As for the first two bulleted items, they are absolutely right. The Former Southerner is ecstatic that we are here and that we sound “like back home”. In the two restaurants that we’ve been in, most of the waitresses have a visible wave of confusion come over their face when we are asking questions or placing our order.
As for the wind, it comes from the north, south, east and the west. It’s always present. Except last night, I had to really try to feel it and could faintly detect it. It makes going to see Matt in the field, like an expedition across a desert. The wind will make the sand/dirt that is being churned in the air, whip from all directions. Or on a day where the high temperature would be 67 degrees, the wind makes it feel like 52 degrees. On the flip side, on a day that is registering 97 degrees, it feels great and you have a constant breeze.
(Looking South down Nation Avenue)
(Looking North up Nation Avenue)
Here are some more tips that my friend sent my way. I found them HIGH-larious. They are also fitting to my life now in Kansas.
Ah, Pratt! Good stuff! I can’t tell you how funny it is that the guy asked for Dukes! I used to get David’s parents to import it in for me too! His mom always joked with me about wanting Dukes, but it’s soooo good! If you’re partial to Dukes or Blue Plate, stock up now because Kraft is the best you’re going to get there. And listen to me, Marci Wooster: If you’re a fan of a certain southern-type bbq sauce, country ham, White Lily flour and cornmeal or Bama jelly like the McClure fam, stock up on those too! There’s nothing like White Lily flour, in my opinion, so we still get that imported in to us here (we can get Dukes and Bama in TX). Conversely, once you get there you may see or hear about a salad dressing called Dorothy Lynch. It’s good so give it a shot! (When we first moved out there we were at a restaurant and I asked what kind of dressing they had and the waitress said Dorothy Lynch. I made her repeat it because I had no idea what she was talking about, and everyone at our table just stared at me – they finally told the waitress ‘she’s from Georgia’ as if it were a foreign country!)
I have not tried the Dorothy Lynch yet, and quite frankly, I’m a little scared to do it. Seriously, a salad dressing with the name of “dorothy lynch”? Now that’s foregin.
