How a Kid from Panama Became a Southerner

Sweet tea, country drives, and the slow art of becoming y'all.

I was doing mental math the other day and realized I’ve lived in the South longer than I’ve lived anywhere else.

Weird thing to realize when you’re a kid from Panama — the country, not the Redneck Riviera city in Florida — and you end up practicing in a blue-collar town in northwest Georgia.

I moved to the US when I was 14. Started high school in Miami, and I assumed I’d spend my life there, because we all assumed Miami was the center of the universe.

I started a life there. Then life events made me want to change careers, and I had to go away to school to study what I wanted, which was chiropractic. I chose the closest chiropractic school to Florida. That was Life University, in Marietta.

So I ended up in the South. Right outside Atlanta.

At first I didn’t know what to make of the people who waved at you when you drove through their neighborhoods. Who said hello. Who made eye contact. They must be psychopaths.

Somewhere along the way I found myself saying “I’m fixin’ to” and “y’all” very often. I heard myself say “holler back at me later.” I know what grits are, and I know the best grits are homemade. I can appreciate a good biscuit-and-gravy breakfast. And I understand that mac and cheese is a vegetable in the South.

I also learned the sweet tea doctrine: if you go anywhere outside the South and ask for sweet tea, they say “I have unsweetened, you can add sugar.” Never accept. Say “I’ll get a Coke instead.”

I’ve been to reunions with my friends from Florida. When I tell them where I live, they look at me like they pity me. “Well, maybe one day you can move back here.” Little do they know what they are missing.

Don’t get me wrong. There are some things I don’t think I’ll ever assimilate. When the conversation switches to college football, I don’t know the Dawgs from the War Eagles from the Rolling Tide.

But the sublime taste of sweet tea. A country drive. A beautiful Southern woman calling you “darlin’.” That stuff got me.

Living in the South has changed me. It’s made me a more polite person. It’s made me a little bit more patient. And it’s made me a lot friendlier.

I just wish people would get to the point in a conversation. And stop being so damn polite when they drive.

Live Long and Prosper,

-Dan

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