By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
A few of you know that I’ve been vacationing in the Outer Banks this week, Save Jerseyans. It’s an annual tradition for me. I love North Carolina, its people and their barbecue. The views and seafood ain’t too bad either. Thus far, Dare County and its neighbors have avoided the over-development that’s spoiled portions of our own beloved Jersey Shore. I know it’s not politically correct to speak well of Dixie these days but the South is more than a flag or what you read about it over at Vox.
Something else that they’ve got over us? Manners.
I love the Garden State. I think I’ve more than proven it, devoting countless hours of my life to a website named Save Jersey. But we’ve got ample room for improvement. We vote like crap, for starters. We’re also a little less than friendly to each other (and outsiders), a fact I’m not going to deny simply out of love of my home state. We need to be honest with those we love!
So think about: When was the last time a stranger held the door for you? Or without prompting met your eye line and wished you a hearty “mornin’!” in an office hallway or Starbucks queue?
In North Carolina, you’re likely to experience person-t0-person pleasantries with average people, not only folks who have a pecuniary incentive to be nice to yankees with money to spend. Just the other day, I found myself caught off guard walking down a winding OBX beach access path where I encountered a father bellowing “good morning” to me with all of the warmth of a Disney sign-a-long character. I’m a friendly guy but, to my shame, I needed half of a second for my brain to adjust and return an appropriately salutatory response. How sad is that?
It’s cultural down here.
Life in New Jersey is crowded, intense and hurried for many residents. That’s NOT to say we’re mean or bad people. Far from it, and I’ll fight any man who says otherwise! Acts of kindness in the aftermath of disasters like Sandy or 9/11, for example, demonstrate that there’s a gooey center beneath the intimidatingly tough exterior of John and Jane Doe Jersey.
But how is the North Carolina driver you cut off on the Parkway or slammed the door on at a Jersey Shore bodega supposed to know that? And just as avoiding exercise can lead to muscular atrophy, I wonder whether failure to behave like a human in your interpersonal, casual interactions leads to a certain diminishment in our respective capacities for behaving like a human in other key ways?
We’re proud of being hard asses. “Jersey girls pump fists, not gas” right? I used to own a tee-shirt that crowed “New Jersey: Where the weak are killed and eaten.”
Down South, they’re proud of being courteous.
New Jersey’s present challenge: Our affinity for all things attitude taken to an unhealthy extreme impacts our politics, too, not just our morning coffee-driven interactions. Forget Governor Christie’s less-helpful outbursts; that’s the least of our problems. Donald Trump’s polling success is proof positive, in part, that “rude” is now officially “in” for adherents to modern American pop culture (note: both men are campaigning in South Carolina, a little further South, as I write this). Trenton’s ruling elite have crossed the thin line separating “tough” and vicious/stupid. Marco Rubio recently said all that needed to be said about the national state of affairs, lamenting that we already have one classless president.
The classlessness crisis isn’t only the Northeast’s problem. Politicians at every reach of the fruited plains are saying stupid things these days, often not without a degree of calculation, hoping bombastic belching is a sufficient substitute for a crude age where the largest bloc of young voters communicates in 140 characters. They’re not wrong and it sucks.
How do you raise a sinking ship (and I don’t think that’s too big of an exaggeration)? Don’t look at me. I’m no closer to being able to explain how to win a culture war than my Republican predecessors. My only suggestion is that we all collectively try to a little harder to inject civility and consideration into each and every micro-encounter with our fellow man.
Maybe it’ll improve New Jersey’s reputation and its politics. We might even see a little more respect for human dignity and private enterprise in how we act, and eventually how we vote? Can’t hurt our state’s flagging internal happiness index either. Then we’ll work on the barbecue. It’s a place to start without even leaving the beach.
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We have been going there as well for the past few years, and have to agree with your assessment Matt. Not only in OBX but SC, Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Texas etc. The pleasantness extended to us Northerners is remarkable. I have never had a bad experience in my life.
Complete strangers greet you with ‘How ya’ll doin’? Once had a waitress sit down in our booth, asked where we were from and started showing us pictures of her grandkids, nieces and nephews. My wife and I left feeling like we were leaving behind a friend.
If everyone were as friendly as the acquaintances we’ve made over the years, the country would be a wonderful place.
This is so sad but so accurate, Matt.