The Mason-Dixon line
I've been a "Yankee Transplant" to the South since the mid-1980s and am still having unexpected epiphanies about the sociological differences. The latest one has to do with the anxiety that Yankee-born parents feel when their kids don't seem to be excelling in the Southern schools they attend. Maybe we should call it YEAS -- Yankee Educational Anxiety Syndrome. My grandson (not quite age 6) is a bundle of neuroses. So is his father, my son. I don't get to spend that much time with them, so my occasional visits offer lots of revelations. What I witnessed this weekend was very concerning, and reminded me of some preceding generations (his, mine, and my parents'). I think Southerners are insecure about their educations, and so are Yankees, for entirely different reasons. Somewhere along the way, Yankees had it drilled into them that THEY are the standard-bearers for educational excellence, and most Southerners are pathetic, dimwitted, knuckle-dragging, barefoot,