You’re Not From Around Here, Are You?
This essay appears in Silly: Stories in Ordinary Time.
The first time I recall someone saying that to me, it wasn’t an accusation so much as a diagnosis. I’d asked for a “pop” in a part of the country where every carbonated beverage is called “Coke,” regardless of its actual flavor. The waitress looked at me with that patient expression reserved for tourists and children, the kind that says, Well, bless your heart, you’re trying.
It’s a line I’ve heard in different languages on different continents, but the sentiment is always the same: you don’t quite belong here, not yet—but give it time, we’ll teach you the words.
Same thing happened to me recently when Sean and I were vacationing for a few days in Dubrovnik, Croatia. We’d spent the day wandering the Old City—a picturesque area that looks a bit like Venice’s country cousin, enclosed in a massive mile-long stone wall dating back to the 1200s. We were ready to head back for the evening and stopped to ask a shopkeeper for directions to Pile Gate, the exit from the Old City nearest our hotel.
Without thinking, I pronounced it “pile”—as in a “pile of rocks.” I got a vaguely amused look from the lady behind the counter. She was obviously used to American tourists and didn’t miss a beat.
“You mean Pee-leh gate?” she said, one eyebrow slightly raised.
“Oh. Yeah, that one,” I answered, a bit sheepishly.
“It’s no problem. You just head back out of the shop, turn right and go all the way to the end of the street. Turn left and you’ll see it around the corner.”
It was surely my imagination, but I’d swear I heard her mutter “You’re not from around here, are you?” in Croatian. Impossible, really. How would I know that? I speak Croatian like I skydive—which is to say, not at all.
If she had, though, it wouldn’t have surprised me. It was the same thing I’d heard a million times living in the American South—like when I first ordered an “iced tea” in Atlanta, Georgia, back in the ’90s. I took one swig and nearly spewed it onto the waitress’s IHOP name tag.
Good lord! Had she mistakenly poured my tea from the maple syrup bottle behind the counter?
“Whoa! I’m sorry, but I wanted an iced tea,” I finally managed to gurgle out, as she subtly wiped expectorated tea from her left eyelid.
“Well, hon, that’s what you ordered,” she said, gesturing to the glass in my hand, clearly puzzled by my reaction.
“Umm… but this has sugar in it,” I replied, thinking that would clear the matter up.
“Oh! You wanted unsweet tea? You shoulda said so, sweetie. Hang on a sec, I’ll get it for you.”
Of course she didn’t say it, but I swear I could see the cartoon thought bubble form over her head: “You’re not from around here, are you?”
Well, now that you mention it…
* * *
When you’ve spent as many years as I have as an Iowa farm boy transplanted to the South, you begin to hear it said in so many different ways. And in all honesty, I have adapted fairly well to Southern customs and manner of speaking.
But “pop?”
That one has been a hard habit to break. It’s such a lovely, descriptive, monosyllabic word for a beverage I have always enjoyed.
My favorite kind of pop (yes—“pop,” dammit!) as a kid was a black cherry flavor of Shasta soda. On Saturdays, my father would go across the state line into Missouri (we lived only three and a half miles on the other side of the line in Iowa) to the Omaha General Store because the gas was cheaper and they sold a brand of lunch meat he liked that you couldn’t buy anywhere else.
While there, he’d treat me to two of my favorite things: Shasta black cherry pop and Fruit Stripe gum—that five-flavor pack where the taste of each stick disappeared within sixty seconds of being chewed.
And here’s the thing: when I asked the lady behind the counter at the general store for “pop,” she never looked at me funny. She didn’t correct me. She knew exactly what I meant. With that one simple statement, it was obvious: I was from there. Whether you lived in Omaha, Missouri or Exline, Iowa, you knew damn good and well it was called “pop.”
Still, that phrase lingers.
You’re not from around here, are you?
Because the truth is, I’d been hearing some version of it long before I ever crossed the Mason-Dixon Line.
* * *
Looking back, that sense of not quite belonging began when I was five or six years old. I was introduced to a boy the same age as me. His name was Jeremy. I don’t recall much else about him, not even his last name.
What I do remember was meeting him at a community picnic of some sort in Exline. There were a bunch of kids playing in the summer sun—running, chasing each other, their laughter bouncing off the trees in the park. Jeremy was among them. For some reason, we fell in together playing a spirited game of hide-and-seek.
Even now, I can feel the mossy roughness of the tree bark under my hands as I leaned in to hide my eyes, counting one, two, three—all the way to twenty. I then sprinted toward the thicket of spirea bushes along the edge of the meadow—really just a repurposed hayfield—serving as our town picnic area.
Jeremy hid himself well in the hedge, but his giggling eventually gave him away. He burst out of hiding and raced back toward the big oak tree that was our base, his dark brown page boy haircut flying behind him as I gave chase. Next we’d change up and I’d be the one to hide.
As the afternoon went on, I found myself enjoying playing with him—much more so than I typically did. We got along famously. When it was time to go, I have a dim recollection of giving him a hug before leaving with my parents. It didn’t seem odd to me at all when I did it, but I still remember the faintly puzzled look he gave me in response before he shrugged and ran back to the rest of the kids.
It was many years before I understood exactly why I’d felt compelled to hug Jeremy—and more to the point, why he’d looked at me so strangely when I did.
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
Yeah, I guess you could say that.
* * *
I realize now that I’ve spent most of my life learning new languages—of place, of people, of love. Sometimes I still catch myself saying “pop.”
When I do and someone says, “You’re not from around here, are you?” I just smile, because honestly—I don’t mind. As it turns out, being from somewhere else isn’t so bad.
The words may be different, but at the end of the day, we’re all saying the same thing.
