I mentioned last week that I spent some time on Long Island this summer attending a work training for my day job at the university. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was not disappointed.
I have been to New York City and Brooklyn several times, but this place was nothing like those. It is 118-mile-long island (hence the name) that is home to about 8 million people. Though I flew in and Ubered to my hotel and spent most of the first two days without actually seeing the ocean. There are too many trees to see the ocean from just anywhere— unlike most islands I had ever been on. It’s a mix of suburban and rural. And it is beautiful.
We were on the campus of Stony Brook University. It’s a green space with an array of buildings and walkways etched out through the forest. It reminded me much of East Texas and my grad school days at Stephen F. Austin.
We did make it to the ocean front for dinner on two different occasions and I’m glad we did. Port Jefferson, New York is as picturesque a town as you will ever see.
The group of people enrolled in the workshop were just as diverse as our surroundings. We were college journalism professors from all over the country. I met a man who now teaches in Los Angeles, but he started his career at a newspaper in Wyoming. He has covered many Tarleton State students at the college rodeo there— small world.
I met another man who teaches at North Carolina State. We discovered we have a mutual friend who now teaches at Midwestern in Wichita Falls— again, small world.
I met a woman who teaches journalism at Northwestern in Chicago, one from inner-city Philadelphia, Nebraska, Baltimore and so on. We literally came from all across the country.
There was a professor there from northern Alabama. Like me, he was native to where he lives and works. He and I were from the two most southern locales of the group. Though even a professor from Syracuse knew that (as she put it), “Texas isn’t really the south. It is its own thing. It always has been.”
My Alabama friend and I enjoyed laughing when folks complained about the “sweltering” 90-degree temperature, and they enjoyed commenting on our accents. My North Carolina friend and I enjoyed explaining the infinite differences between Texas and Carolina BBQ. The conversation shifted to food and folks laughed when I told them I don’t eat Mexican food north of Oklahoma City. Then someone asked, “What’s the most popular Mexican food restaurant chain for people in Texas?” They were amazed when I said folks here don’t eat much chain Mexican food.
“Any town of any size in Texas has a family-owned Mexican food restaurant,” I told them. “Most towns have multiple options. Sometimes they are members of the same family competing against each other, and folks have their favorites. In Gainesville, Texas you are either a Mi Casa family or an El Tapatio family. The lines seldom blur, but all the competition leads to some really good Mexican food all-around.”
“Sounds like heaven,” someone said.
I confirmed that it was.
I’m proud of our place in the world and it comes across that way in conversation. Folks laugh and seemed interested in my Texas stories, so I obliged them. Otherwise, they are just being polite. In either case, I persisted.
I told a story about an early April snowstorm that hit Whitesboro in 1942. Of course, I wasn’t here to experience it, but I relay the stories of someone who was. I told them about how the first cold snap of the season leads to me having a few students miss class because they are tending to livestock. The weather talk continued, and I told them about how the Trollinger Park fountain freezing over is always front-page news. By the end of our time together, one of my new colleagues remarked, “Austin, you possess that classic, whimsical Texas wit— like Dan Rather or Willie Nelson or someone along those lines.”
I laughed and thanked her and assured her I was nowhere close to either of those wits.
The most interesting remark about my Texan mannerisms came from a lady at the airport when I was leaving town. We struck up a conversation. She was on her way to Florida to see her grandkids. She commented on my accent. I commented on hers— it was as “Long Island” as you could get.
“Have you lived in Texas your whole life?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Except for a few years at college in southern Oklahoma.”
“What did you call me?” she said. “You’ve said that a few times now. Are you calling me ‘ma’am’?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
“That’s nice. It’s just not something you hear up here. Is that a Texas thing? What do you call men?”
“Sir,” I said. “We were raised to say, ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘no, ma’am’ and ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir.’ It is a form of respect.”
She acted as if she’d never heard of such.
“That’s very nice— very Texan— very southern, I guess. You just don’t hear those expressions on Long Island. I like it. Thank you for that respect,” she said.
I was happy to share our diction and happy that my folks raised me right. I like to think the people who survived the Whitesboro snowstorm of 1942 would approve as well.