Drop a Michigan transplant into a Cullman diner and watch their confusion kick in. These are the Alabama sayings that leave out-of-towners completely lost. 1. Roll Tide Roll Tide isn’t only a football cheer in Alabama, and that’s where outsiders get lost. It’s a hello. It’s a goodbye. It’s sympathy at a funeral and a…
Six cousins once piled into a wood-paneled Buick Estate Wagon, three of them behind the back seat, for the drive down I-81 to Grandma’s. Nobody clicked a belt. That was an ordinary Saturday for a Virginia kid in 1975. Today, it would get a parent pulled over before the end of the block. These are…
Do you know what a Georgian means when they ask what kind of coke you want? If you’re not from the South, we’re willing to bet you don’t. These are the words and phrases Georgians say that leave many Americans across the country completely lost. 1. Carry A Georgian offering to “carry” you somewhere isn’t…
A Floridian moves to Texas, walks into the nearest grocery store, and stands in the aisle, let down. The bakery looks wrong. The deli menu is missing things. These are the foods Floridians only started buying because of Publix. 1. Chicken Tender Sub The Chicken Tender Sub is arguably the food that put Publix on…
Few Tennesseans leave Cracker Barrel with just a to-go box. The store does its best to make sure that’s the case. You wait for a table, wander the shelves, and a cast iron skillet or a bag of candy lands in your hands before the buzzer ever goes off. These are the Cracker Barrel store…
Think you’ve seen aggressive driving? Spend one afternoon on Florida’s Turnpike for the first time, and we’re willing to bet you’ll change your mind. These are the things Florida drivers do that terrify everyone else on the road. 1. Camp in the Fast Lane Few things say “road trip” in Florida faster than a sedan…
A transplant from Michigan shows up to a cookout near Florence at noon, and the host has already been awake since four in the morning. There’s a whole hog out back on a cinder-block pit, tended in shifts and still hours from done. By dark, that newcomer will have tried a handful of items nobody…
Half of upstate New York’s most-loved dishes sound like a dare. They aren’t. Not to locals, at least. Between Rochester, Utica, and the Finger Lakes, Upstaters have spent a century turning odd ingredients and stranger names into food they’d never trade. These are the upstate New York foods locals refuse to apologize for. 1. Garbage…
A “Welcome Snowbirds” banner goes up outside a Mesa recreational-vehicle resort every October, right on schedule. The people who follow it rarely pack for the Arizona that’s waiting for them. These are the things snowbirds pack for Arizona that never quite survive contact with the Valley. 1. Summer Clothes Only Phoenix’s December days average a…
Most tourists think a beach is just sand, sunscreen, and a place to park their cooler. Longtime Floridians know better. Here’s a two truths and a lie game about Florida’s coastline. Every round gives you three statements, two true and one false. You pick the lie. How well do you score? The Whitest Sand Florida’s…
