Always a direction home

By Sgt. Bob

A comedian on television said, “I was in the South …”

It was real easy to tell he wasn’t from the South, because everybody from the South knows there are four cardinal directions: Down South, Out West, Up North and Back East.

Those cardinal directions are not the same as north, east, south and west, because by adding the modifier Down, Out, Up and Back, the speaker places himself and his locale in the center of the universe.

If you believe the South is not the center of the universe, well, you are not from there, or maybe you are from Texas. Texas has much Southern, since earliest Anglo settlers were from the South, but Texas is not in the South. Texas is, as the ads say, “A whole ‘nother country.”

Nor is Texas considered Out West. Out West is west of El Paso and Oklahoma. But every place north of Oklahoma is not considered Up North. Nebraska and the Dakotas are Out West, but Kansas is … Kansas, I suppose.

If you are, by God’s grace, from Texas or are lucky enough to have moved there, you know Texas is divided into parts – East Texas, North Texas, South Texas, West Texas and the Panhandle. Texas is grand enough to have an additional descriptive direction. “Panhandle” is not a true direction, but you can’t describe Texas without it.

Back to those other directions, you can use Back East or Up North to sort of describe the same places, but the description depends on what your thoughts are at the moment. You could say Virginia and the Carolinas are Back East, but not with the same attitude as saying they are Down South. You could say New York is Up North, but that takes on a whole different attitude than saying it is Back East. Generally, places that are Up North, you don’t want to spend much time there. Finish your business and leave.

Pennsylvania and Michigan are Up North, as are Ohio and Indiana and Iowa. Places you don’t want to go Up North include Dee-Troit and Chicago. People talk funny there.

What it comes down to is, we have a big country. Big. Not Russia, Canada or China big, but big enough we are regionalized and separated by past occurrences, some good, some not so.

Just keep in mind it’s Down South, not In the South.

Ya’ll have a good day.