North versus South

The January New Jersey Monthly Magazine is dedicated to the differences between North Jersey and South Jersey. Of note to me is an article outlining the "culture shock" of Northerners in the South and vice-versa.

We're talking heavy stuff, here. It seems, according to an article titled "The Transplant Diaries," in North Jersey, they have subs, in South Jersey, hoagies. Italian ice versus water ice; sprinkles on your ice cream, not jimmies. Finally, NJ Monthly delivers this stunner: The Newark Star Ledger is unavailable at the Wawa store in the south. Horrors!

These people have no clue what a real "transplant" is. Try Northern NJ to Clemson, SC. If a different name for the same product constitutes material for a full page of copy, what would they do with stuff like this:

Plug chewing tobacco in the urinal at 8 AM

Chicken-fried steak

Pimiento cheese sandwiches

Barbecue. Not as a cooking methodology, but as in pork pulled off the carcas and mixed with a vinegar sauce.

Biscuits and brown gravy.

Fried steak biscuits. For breakfast.

Civilians with loaded revolvers on their hip. At the grocery store. Buying tampons.

The replacement of the word "everybody" with "all y'all"

Country, folk, and bluegrass are actually considered three different music styles.

Big time college football. Not Harvard-Yale or Princeton-Penn. We're talking crowds bigger than most pro football games see.

Kudzu. Unless you've seen that stuff grow, don't ask, and don't leave your windows open at night.

Watermelons as they relate to Everclear. Don't ask, cause I don't remember.

If people from Hackensack think that they have nothing in common with people from Tom's River, they really need to travel a little.