The Human Trampoline

WOOSTAH

The nicest thing that anyone has ever written about Worcester, MA.

dailyhuff:

Worcester, MA, where I live now, is a gritty, funky, quirky place. Parts of Worcester are honestly a tad scary. And those parts aren’t all that far from my house. 

But weirdly, for a boy who has lived virtually all his life in the South, I fucking love New England. I fucking love Woostah. 

I can’t quite explain why. It’s partly just that the feeling I had for years, that I actually wanted to live in New England (yes, that’s been a dream of mine for decades), that I wanted to live some place different.

And it’s different, here. But not.

Up here, there’s no guarantee a server will hand me—the “man”—the check at the end of the meal. They’re more likely to hand it to my wife. That was never the case down South. The server’s gender or ethnicity didn’t matter—in the South they always handed me, the guy, the check. My wife and I like that they don’t do that here. 

Up here, people like to bitch. They don’t bitch about you to your face. In fact, the whole “rude Yankee” thing Southerners like to believe is essentially a myth. Yankees are often businesslike, yes, but they can be elaborately polite and moreover, respectful of your time. But they will definitely bitch to a relative stranger about something else, if so moved. I find that hilarious. It’s all I can do to not bust out laughing sometimes. It’s so honest. 

Up here weirdness and sometimes rudeness is okay, though. If you think about it, that’s a very casual way to live.

And also—the South is home to women who put on makeup for a 5-minute trip to the grocery. The North is home to women who go to the store in curlers and tank tops and house shoes and fuck you if you don’t like it, pally. 

I like that. A lot. 

To be really real, the thing about Worcester (Wistah, Woostah, etc) that I like the most, though, is that it’s pretty fucking redneck, even though no one here would dare use that word. Tattoos, attitudes, big trucks, motorcycles and all. In that respect it totally fucking feels like home.

Here’s my culture shock about the region in general. Here’s what this Tennessee Cracker in Central Massachusetts has to say: this place kicks ass. I like it. Even the dirty parts. Bring on the assholes crowding the roads to look at leaves in the Fall. Bring on the long, shitty Winters, all that snow. I want to see it all. I want to know. This is home now.

I can only expand, and grow. 

(via dailyhuff-deactivated20121030)

14 August 2012 ·

• Tags
• new england
• worcester
• woostah