Washington gained about 61,750 residents through migration last year and lost many of its own at the same time. Many people leaving are glad to tell you why. But give a former Washingtonian some time, and they’ll list the exact things about home that don’t exist anywhere else. These are the things people who’ve left…
A bull named Old Buck still crashes a village dance on Hatteras Island every January 6th. Rodanthe wouldn’t have it any other way. These are some of the things small towns in North Carolina do that the rest of the country has long since stopped. 1. A Country Store’s Potbelly Stove Mast General Store has…
Only about a dozen of South Carolina’s peanut farms grow the raw, undried peanuts a boiled peanut stand needs. Everybody else grows peanuts bound for roasting, peanut butter, or candy. Needless to say, visitors driving past a plywood “boiled peanuts” sign in July have no idea how seriously South Carolinians take their boiled peanuts. 1….
Alabama doesn’t wait on a cold front to call it fall. It waits on a whistle. Football conferences, wildlife agencies, and county fair boards each pick their own date months in advance, and not one of them consults a meteorologist. These are the signs that fall has landed in Alabama that have nothing to do…
Texas has 254 counties, more than any other state. Somewhere along the way from one county line to the next, an ordinary English word starts meaning something else. A transplant finds out mid-sentence, usually in front of people who assumed everybody already knew. These are the words that mean something completely different once someone crosses…
Think a jar in the back of your Georgia grandmother’s pantry has to be trash by now? Not necessarily. She might still be working through a jug of sorghum syrup from last year’s Blairsville Sorghum Festival. The syrup’s sugar content means it’d be hard-pressed to spoil. These are the things a Georgia grandmother’s kitchen holds…
Tennessee residents will defend just about anything tied to their state, whether the facts hold up or not. These are the things Tennesseans defend hardest about their state, even when they can’t fully explain why. 1. Jack Daniel’s Tennesseans wear Jack Daniel’s like a state symbol, stamped on koozies, murals, and welcome signs from Bristol…
A Trader Joe’s shopping cart holds about half the groceries as a standard supermarket cart. Only Dollar Tree’s carts are smaller. Even so, wedging a cart down a Trader Joe’s aisle at rush hour causes tempers to fray fast. These are the Trader Joe’s habits that annoy other California shoppers. 1. Parking Carts Across the…
In 1932, diners nationwide painted their decaf pots orange. It was a marketing push from the Sanka brand that still tells New York counters how to pour coffee today. The color stuck. In some cases, so did the vocabulary. These are the diner orders that give a New Yorker’s age away before coffee even hits…
Sand Mountain in northeast Alabama is one of the last places in the country where a handful of churches still sing straight from the Sacred Harp during a regular Sunday service. Homecoming season used to fill Alabama’s country churches with the same handful of rituals, year after year. These are the church homecoming traditions Alabamians…
