Oh ya, you betcha

My parents are in town for a visit, and they brought with them a copy of Nimrod Nation, a documentary about highschool basketball in Watersmeet, Michigan. We watched part of it last night, and it brought back memories so real that it was almost painful. You can take the girl out of the U.P., but you can't take the U.P. out of the girl.

For those non-Michiganders, you may wonder what the heck I'm talking about. U.P. stands for Upper Peninsula, a rural stretch of land in northern Michigan populated by hunters, fisherman, isolationists, nature loves, and free spirits. I'm not a true Yooper, since I was born in the flat land of lower Michigan, but I have the accent (at least when I'm around other Yoopers, that is). And I have the memories: long winters, cabin fever, basketball, cheerleading, and small town living.

I graduated from highschool with ten people in my class, a huge number for my hometown, Grand Marais. If you remember the series Northern Exposure, you have an inkling about my youth. Like so many teenagers, I wanted OUT (like the girl in Nimrod Nation who talks about getting away to someplace warm, like Wisconsin, where she could go to cosmetology school). My theme song was Big Time; I wanted to get out of that town where they think so small they use small words. I was embarassed by my yooper accent (think Frances McDormand in Fargo). I wanted nothing more than lay waste to my poor, rural, northern upbringing and live a life without accent, without the poor ways of poor towns.

The irony is not lost on me. I now live in a small southern city with equal parts poverty and waste, heavy with a southern accent. Yesterday, my daughter corrected my mom when she pronounced pecans like a northerner. "Grandma, it's peee-can." Grace regularly adds vowels to words in true southern fashion: Da-ad, ba-ack, ya-all. Hearing the south in her voice made me want to write a list of all the southernisms I don't want her and Julia to use (like 'might could' and 'mash'). I realized last night that writing that list is all about me. Me not wanting to have a yooper accent. Me not wanting to be poor, to have poor ways, to use small words (as Peter Grabriel would say). So there's no list today. Grace and Julia are GRITS after all (Girls Raised in the South). Just as I can't take the U.P. out of me, I shouldn't try to take the South out of my southern belles.

Oh ya, you betcha.

......

For your viewing pleasure, Nimrod Nation: