The husband, I found out, was 49 and had been in the merchant marine. His father was in WWII, and his brother, nicknamed Groove, as in Groovy, served two tours in Vietnam as a Ranger. Groove returned from battle high strung and guilt racked. His wife left him. Later in life, his skin peeled off, then his liver malfunctioned, all because of Agent Orange. After a 1 1/2 year illness, Groove died at 57.
"Groove told me he once shot a small Vietnamese boy with explosives strapped to his body by the Viet Cong. That's how crazy it was."
His wife added, "I saw this Vietnam movie where there was a little girl sitting by the side of the road. She had clean clothes and nice hair and everything. She was watching tanks go by. That's not right! It's not fair that a child should grow up with that, while I grew up with Wawa!"
Wawa is a chain of convenience stores. In suburban or small town New Jersey, it is an institution. At Wawa, all of your earthly needs, nutritional, hygienic, recreational, light literary and sloppily sexual (in the parking lot) can be met.
She wished she didn't live so close to a Wawa, since it was always so tempting to run to it three or four times a day. Their hoagies were excellent, she thought, and so was their coffee.
"You'd rather be in a more remote place?" I asked.
"No, I want to be in the 18th century, so I can start all over!" Then, "You know what's my favorite part of the country?"
"What?"
"Anything south of the Mason-Dixon line! The people down there are the nicest. If they see that you're a decent sort, they'll do anything for you."
"Are you from the South originally?"
"No, I've spent my entire life in Woodbury, but I do have a brother in North Carolina. We go down there pretty regularly."
It's remarkable how pervasive anti-South attitudes have become, but this bias is essentially a clash of urban and cosmopolitan values against agrarian and rural ones. People who are contemptuous of the South tend to hate all "hicks" and "rednecks." I know of a white self-proclaimed "revolutionary" whose every political, literary and musical hero is non-white. Once he laughingly sneered, "All Southerners should be killed!" Often violent in words and sometimes physically, he doesn't get along with his black neighbors either. Rootless, this angry misanthrope lives on National Public Radio, Rolling Stone and CounterPunch. He'd love to see everything but himself burn down.
Though only ten miles from Philadelphia, Woodbury already leans towards the rural, with nearby farms growing asparagus, tomatoes, potatoes and corn. Half an hour away, Cowtown Rodeo is held weekly during the summer. Before that night was over, Mrs. Ball got quite trashed and mistakenly drank someone's liquor twice. After the second time, she plopped her head down on the bar as if mortally wounded. When a nearby man asked what had happened, Mr. Ball shrugged, "She fucked up," and I added, "Twice." Suddenly, she lifted her head and sobbed at her husband, "You never give me any support!"
"What did you drink?" he asked.
"I don't know."
Dipping a finger into the shot glass, she then pointed it at my lips. Normally, I don't lick any man's wife in front of him, but if this is how they do it in Woodbury, New Jersey, who am I to object? I stuck my tongue out.
"Groove told me he once shot a small Vietnamese boy with explosives strapped to his body by the Viet Cong. That's how crazy it was."
His wife added, "I saw this Vietnam movie where there was a little girl sitting by the side of the road. She had clean clothes and nice hair and everything. She was watching tanks go by. That's not right! It's not fair that a child should grow up with that, while I grew up with Wawa!"
Wawa is a chain of convenience stores. In suburban or small town New Jersey, it is an institution. At Wawa, all of your earthly needs, nutritional, hygienic, recreational, light literary and sloppily sexual (in the parking lot) can be met.
"You'd rather be in a more remote place?" I asked.
"No, I want to be in the 18th century, so I can start all over!" Then, "You know what's my favorite part of the country?"
"What?"
"Anything south of the Mason-Dixon line! The people down there are the nicest. If they see that you're a decent sort, they'll do anything for you."
"Are you from the South originally?"
"No, I've spent my entire life in Woodbury, but I do have a brother in North Carolina. We go down there pretty regularly."
It's remarkable how pervasive anti-South attitudes have become, but this bias is essentially a clash of urban and cosmopolitan values against agrarian and rural ones. People who are contemptuous of the South tend to hate all "hicks" and "rednecks." I know of a white self-proclaimed "revolutionary" whose every political, literary and musical hero is non-white. Once he laughingly sneered, "All Southerners should be killed!" Often violent in words and sometimes physically, he doesn't get along with his black neighbors either. Rootless, this angry misanthrope lives on National Public Radio, Rolling Stone and CounterPunch. He'd love to see everything but himself burn down.
Though only ten miles from Philadelphia, Woodbury already leans towards the rural, with nearby farms growing asparagus, tomatoes, potatoes and corn. Half an hour away, Cowtown Rodeo is held weekly during the summer. Before that night was over, Mrs. Ball got quite trashed and mistakenly drank someone's liquor twice. After the second time, she plopped her head down on the bar as if mortally wounded. When a nearby man asked what had happened, Mr. Ball shrugged, "She fucked up," and I added, "Twice." Suddenly, she lifted her head and sobbed at her husband, "You never give me any support!"
"What did you drink?" he asked.
"I don't know."
Dipping a finger into the shot glass, she then pointed it at my lips. Normally, I don't lick any man's wife in front of him, but if this is how they do it in Woodbury, New Jersey, who am I to object? I stuck my tongue out.
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