Friday, May 21, 2010

Longing for the North... or Way South


It froze again last night. In anticipation of the event we covered the asparagus bed, the basil, and the flowers in front of the house. Sure enough, the sheet on the asparagus bed was frozen this morning, as were the tops of two of the tallest spears.

For the most part I love being a northerner. My tender skin has never handled sunlight very well, and thankfully, we don't have that much of it up here. I appreciate the northern European cultural mix that characterizes our region, as well as the bookishness that goes hand in hand with staying inside by the fire all winter. Besides, I just can't do the South. I used to love fried foods, but find my tastes are changing, excepting that little bit of fried salmon skin in the makizushi.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened had the South won the Civil War. The end of slavery would have come, but probably much later and at greater human cost. But going forth the Northern Union could have developed a society, culture and state free from the baggage of southern xenophobia. The problem is, Indiana might not have remained intact, and my kin hailed from the portion of that state that probably would have ended up in the South. And I would have lived to gaze longingly north toward the border, wishing I were from elsewhere, say, from British Columbia. Oh...never mind.

By the way, there was an excellent article about New Zealand on BBC this week. Here is a link.


1 comment:

  1. thanks for the article! I am hoping to someday move to NZ -- maybe to teach? We'll see what the future holds. I'd love to do a 3-5 year stint there.

    What crazy weather you're having. We're also having craziness, but it's more of a heat wave than anything. I finally picked up tomato starts and the like, so those will go in the ground today and join all the different squashes and peas we started from seed. I'm jealous of your asparagus -- I will have that someday when I live in the same place long enough to have perennials.

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