🧑‍🤝‍🧑 / 🏡 How true is this about the south? Is it land ownership? Or, we just talk to people?

[TerryP]

 

[musso]

The more rural, the slower, calmer, and friendlier.
The more urban, the faster, more stressed, and ruder.
Even though the South has become less rural over time, it'll always be less urbanized than most other regions.

 

[It Takes Eleven]

The more rural, the slower, calmer, and friendlier.
The more urban, the faster, more stressed, and ruder.
Even though the South has become less rural over time, it'll always be less urbanized than most other regions.

There is the rural, social, friendly piece, and the slower pace. It's real. When I'm standing in a checkout line in Alabama, I've had to re-learn that when the receipt is handed over to the person in front of me, it's not my turn until their conversation is over.

That being said, there are good people everywhere. Over 16 years, I hiked the Appalachian Trail in 65- to 170-mile chunks, sequentially south to north from Springer Mountain, Georgia to Katahdin, Maine. There were awesome people all along the way, sounding different but all with a genuine interest in helping folks. Last month, I hiked the West Highland Way and Ben Nevis in rural Scotland. To a person, everyone I encountered was equally nice. The Brit could've taken the train a few hours north and enjoyed those lovely people and their accents.

RTR,

Tim

 

[Brandon Van de Graaff]

IMO, a lot of it is rooted in culture and one's overall level of happiness.

 

[It Takes Eleven]

IMO, a lot of it is rooted in culture and one's overall level of happiness.

One of my favorite bankers of all time is Kelly King, former CEO of BB&T (now Truist). I may try to link his most recent LinkedIn post here, but his main theme is that happiness is a choice. I've seen this play out many times. If you think you're miserable, you are destined to be miserable.

I was in a spot to spend time with Kelly one on one, and he shared the following story with me, among others. I apologize if I've shared this before, but King is a man of faith, and he went with his Sunday School class on a mission work trip to a Caribbean nation - I think Dominican Republic, so let's go with that. This man was responsible for, at the time, over 40,000 employees, and he unplugs and does manual labor for a week to help build a children's health clinic. They finish their work and they go into town to the only place to buy ice cream to celebrate, and he's sitting in the ice cream parlor and a lady across the shop is making eye contact with him, smiling. She gets up, comes over and asks, "are you Kelly King?" He said yes, and she responded, "I just want you to know that I heard you speak in New Orleans about five years ago and your talk made a huge impact on my life."

King remembered the trip to New Orleans well; it was his only trip there. He was on the corporate plane and MSY was fogged in. They circled for over an hour, and finally the pilot said he'd try a landing once more, but if they aborted they'd have to jump north to MS to refuel. At the last moment, the fog lifted enough for a landing. King, now late, was nursing a bad cold and felt terrible, and he rushed to the venue to give his speech. Because he was late, he had to walk straight to the podium for his speech - no conversations or opportunity to spend time with the participants - and when he finished he had to rush back to the plane to make an afternoon commitment. He said that he felt like a failure that day, that he hadn't been able to relate to his audience as he'd liked.

Fast forward five years, and he has a lady telling him of the impact of that talk. She asks, "what are you doing here?" He explained their work and added, "we have a building, now all we need are doctors to look after these kids." She smiled and said, "my husband is head of pediatric medicine at the local hospital. I think we can get you the doctors."

There are no coincidences in life.

 

[TerryP]

If you think you're miserable, you are destined to be miserable.

 

[alabama mike]

There are fine folks all over but after 35 years living in the north, I agree, people in the south are friendlier overall.

 

[TerryP]

When I'm standing in a checkout line in Alabama, I've had to re-learn that when the receipt is handed over to the person in front of me, it's not my turn until their conversation is over.

Wasn't it Bruno's that was next to the mall on McFarland? I was in there almost daily for several years and ended becoming friends, good friends, with a lady who was a cashier there. Hell, she even invited me to her retirement party.

I came across this earlier today and thought back to this comment:

"Strike up a conversation folks...there's memories waiting to visit." (sic)