The latest from Atlanta... . When I came here, I thought this area would be just another manifestation of humanity as I have come to know it in the various places I have lived. I am no stranger to the south, having lived in Southwest VA and visited my inlaws in VA every year since I graduated from undergraduate school there, but GA is a totally different world.
After the baseball game yesterday (Jeremy's team was slaughtered, and Jeremy especially, who had to pitch when he has not really pitched since he was 12 years old), we went to a barbeque restaurant to sample the local cuisine. We stopped to get gas, and I went into the convenience store attached to the gas station to ask directions. All of a sudden I felt as though my head were being squeezed in a vise and got a terrible blinding headache. My legs turned to rubber bands and I started to black out. I guess that even though it wasn't really very hot or humid I didn't get enough to drink or something while I was watching the game. I called for help and my father in law came over and led me into the convenience store to sit down. But the people who were in the store (the owners, I think) not only did not get me a chair, wet cloth, or ice (unless I bought a 5 lb bag, which I didn't need or want to do), they didn't care or react at all. I have never seen that sort of response, even in Philadelphia. It is possible that they didn't understand what I was saying, since they were Asian, probably Korean, but they didn't look as though English was the problem, and I think I can tell that by now, having taught English for so long. When I later stopped off at a store to buy a hat and thus prevent a recurrance of what happened to me yesterday, I got the same sort of coldness from the African American salespeople there. I had the feeling I had walked into something I didn't understand. The best I can figure it, the culture of the slavery system or at least the tacit rules of that system still continue in some form entirely unlike VA. This is, after all, the deep south. I guess everything is an adventure. Though I am not getting to explore Atlanta (haven't even been there yet--I'm in the suburbs near the ballparks), I am seeing and learning about different ways of life.
2 comments:
I am very sorry to hear that the ballgame didn't go your way.
These are interesting stories from Georgia and reveal, perhaps, that American mistrust of the stranger, a fear, really, that just perpetuates itself.
They won the next day. Jeremy is not doing too well at the bat, and it hurts him, but the coach knows just how to fix it and then he will be good enough to be picked up by a scout, the coach says.
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