SONG OF THE SOUTH

It's been a while since I was here. There are things we forget...and there are things that are new and unknown.

Looking out the window of the plane as we approached landing. "My goodness", I thought, "the dirt is really red here."

I knew that...but I forgot that.

One step off the plane...into that square tube I think they call the "jet way". It isn't a tight seal. And I felt it...even remarked out loud about it...

Humidity. Not heavy, not oppressive...it is November after all. But there, like an old, worn t-shirt with a smell that takes you back to high school.

And the acccent. In Giessen I don't run into it nearly as much. There are southerners in the Army and many of them in our little corner of Germany. But I'm not talking about a "southern accent" here...there isn't such a thing. There are as many accents across the south as there are regions and shades of regions. I'm talking about the regional lilt that exists within about a 100 mile circle of where I grew up.

In poor Hollywood productions the adopted, overwrought "southern" accents would have my name pronounced "Tee-yum". But that isn't really it. Like much of Hollywood its overdone, too simplistic revealing more about Hollywood's expectations than about the south itself. A native from around here pronounces it more like "Teh-em" in a similar approach to our pronunciation of my home town, "Grehn-vull".

It is soft and warm, like the pastor's hand when you shake it while passing out the door after an excited Sunday sermon.

And there is a certain unhurried comfort...remarkably achieved inside an airport of all places. Scattered throughout the Charlotte airport are circles of rocking chairs. Painted white, and intermixed among large potted ficus trees, they aren't for show...they are for use. I sat in one for an hour...watching the people, watching the sunset, rocking back and forth as if I were sitting on Charlotte's front porch. It was surprisingly therapeutic...I'd forgotten the power of a rocking chair. Sitting here now I wonder if rockers in an airport are an incongruity to some.

If they are...well, they just ain't from 'round here.

Those are the initial impressions...rememberences of parts of my own soul that have sat on the shelf for most of the 24 years I've lived somewhere other than here on behalf of the US Army.

But it isn't all fresh peaches. The down sides exist.

Like pennies.

In our little American economic community in Germany - the community that consists of the PX, the Commissary, the on-post Burker King, the AAFES Shopette, the Bowling Lanes and the self-service auto repair garage...we've eliminated pennies. We don't use them...although prices will still read "69 cents" or "$1.52". We just round it up or down to the nearest nickel.

I suppose some statistician out there could take the time to figure out that prices get rounded up say, 58% or the time thus increasing actual cost of living by .046% on average. And the time required to figure that out is about as long as it takes to get over thinking about it and learn to enjoy the fact that all your change is silver, and it all spends easily.

I'm home 12 hours, I have a pocket full of pennies I do not want. Sorry Abe, if I want to see you, I'll pull out a Five.

And then there is the Party Line. I'm not talking about a common story to which we all subscribe. I'm talking about the rural phone lines of 50 years ago...when multiple families were on a single telephone circuit...an arrangement in which family A could be having a conversation on the phone with family B across town and family C (next door) could listen in by simply picking up the handset in family C's own home. You shared the same phone line...and, if you were a busybody, you could share the information too by silently listening in.

It seems we've come nearly full circle. There are some technical changes of course...we aren't on the same line and I can't necessarily hear both sides of the conversation. But the cell phone has returned elements of the Party Line to our lives.

While sitting in the airport yesterday awaiting the connecting flight, I listened in on no less than five telephone calls.

I learned that she initially intended to have a simple print dress, but fell in love with this huge formal wedding gown afterall and is now uncertain whether she should pack it for flying to Ohio, or ask a friend to drive it.

I learned that in spite of the testing results to the contrary by the independent laboratory this certain gizmo apparently doesn't work at low temperatures. At least the customer seems to think so...and it would appear a law suit for breach of contract could be in the works unless the vendor comes up with a fix and pretty fast.

I learned that...well, I think you get the picture. And I think that you may be feeling that you don't really care what I learned by overhearing these conversations seemingly shouted into cell phones.

And that is the point. Neither do I.

I was not a willing participant to any of these phone calls. But that doesn't seem to matter to the denizens of the Charlotte Douglas Airport...

No one who reads here regularly can call me a Euro-phile. Unlike les nouveaux-voyageurs I've lived in Europe long enough to understand those bumps are European warts...not beauty marks.

But when we arrived in Germany this time it was clear that everyone has a cell phone (the Germans inexplicably call a cell phone "ein Handy"). There were at that time easily more handies per capita in Germany than in the USA. So they know cell phones, and they do cell phones.

And apparently they've figured out that the engineers have conquered that gap between the end of the cell phone at near mid-cheek level, and the eminations of vocalizations that come out of ones mouth.

Or, put more simply...they've learned they DON'T HAVE TO YELL INTO THE CELL PHONE!!!!!!!!!!

We need some serious catch up in the etiquette of cell phone usage.

If it rings at the table in the restaurant, take it outside.

If you can't take it outside, move someplace out of hearing range.

If anyone can hear your side of the conversation other than the person on the other end of the phone, friend, you are wrong.

I don't know whether to file this under noise pollution or personal space invasion.

I can sit next to you in an airport waiting room...we can be physically within 6 inches of one another and we can coexist. If we talk, we tend to adjust our voices so that only the most persistent of eavesdroppers can overhear. We have figured all this out and have a cultural norm regarding our personal space.

When you shout into your cell phone, indeed if not shouting...but you are having that conversation in such a way that I can't help but hear it...do you know just what a pompous, self-absorbed ass you appear to be? You aren't cool...I'm not impressed that you are getting married or just bungled a multi-million dollar deal...and I'm wondering just how on earth we used to ever get along without knowing precisely the second the airplane that you are on came to a halt at the airport gate.

No - when any of this happens you are the aural equivalent of Ernie, poking at Bert.

Poke poke poke poke poke.

I wouldn't stand for physical pokes...and you wouldn't consider physically poking me.

Why, then, do you poke me in the ear?

And such are the ruminations of a jet lagged insomniac who is glad to be home with family, and a bit inquiet that my darling wonderful wife isn't here. They love her. I love her...and she makes me a better person when she is around.