Perpetual Humility

Now many of you know that a big theme of this site has been the erosion of my prejudices about southern and rural ways of life. I know they're not the same thing, but in terms of my prejudice, they often group together.

Before I moved to Knoxville, I feared people down here would be simple minded, intolerant, uncultured, etc. I don't know that I've stated those previous prejudices so bluntly, but there you have it. If it's any consolation I've since come to realize that I was to a large degree wrong about that stuff, and I am quite ashamed of myself for thinking those thoughts to the extent I did. That shame is part of the reason I call myself out on it - my guilty conscious feels better when I 'out' myself.

Anyway, despite my seeming enlightenment and claims that I've seen the light, I once again have found myself confronted with my own prejudice. Even though I no longer group everyone in the south into one category and think much better of southerners in general, I have to admit I still do maintain discriminating thoughts about rural areas and rural people. The truth is I don't really leave West Knoxville that much, and am a little afraid at what I'll find outside it's borders. I haven't had that much experience with rural places and people, and still assume they are simple folk without depth or education.

Then today I saw this:



Now I know it's a long clip - I almost never sit through online videos that long - but for some reason I stuck with this and it really touched my heart. The dog was pretty amazing, but it was the dog's owner, David Hartwig, who really made an impression on me.

Now don't get me wrong. With all due respect, David is not a cosmopolitan man. He's not on the cutting edge of fashion. He doesn't hold a degree from an Ivy League school. I doubt very much he and I would share the same view on political and social issues.

But there is no doubt he is a good man, and that transcends most everything else. If I had a flat tire, I know he'd help me fix it. If I was hungry and needed food, I betcha he'd give me a sandwich. His love for his dog tells me as much. But what I found most touching was his final words which I think bear repeating:

"If god gives me a thunderstorm, I'm going to thank him. If he gives me a blind dog, it just means me and Skidboot can have more personal time together. We're not going to begrudge anything. Life is too precious to be upset, and this dog, I will hand lead him everywhere when he's so blind he can't get around. It don't bother me at all. I love this dog".

...and most importantly...

"What is this all about? Why did this happen to me? And, the theme is the question, not the answer. And he's brought more joy into my life and lots of peoples lives, than all kinds of TV and fine cars and motorboats. Maybe that's the thing".

To the more cynical of you that may not exactly seem like a groundbreaking realization, but for this cynic it is. Not just because the message echos a profound truth, but because it comes from a man I would have never expected to be capable of such depth and tenderness. And so I am humbled once again, and hopefully a better person for it. For that I owe David Hartwig both my apologies and thanks.

Happy Holidays from KnoxvilleYankee.com!

It's our first Christmas in Knoxville, a happy day to be sure, but not much different than in years past. In fact over the past few days I've been a bit startled at how very similar the holiday season has been here in Knoxville with the northern holiday experience. I guess I expected a much more visible and vocal Christian presense, but it didn't materialize. It was the same mix of family, vacation, and commercialism it's always been.

People at work started dropping like flies last week, begrudingly heading off to see family in remote places. The shopping frenzy created a constant Manhattan-like wall of traffic wherever we went, especially near Turkey Creek. Christmas cards were sent and recieved. There were a number of holiday-related parties and gifts exchanged between friends. As with most of my life, we didn't have a white Christmas, a common failing in New York which seems to be my fate forever now that I live in the south.

The only difference was the near total lack of visible Hannukah. There were no menorahs or stars of David, no politically correct 'happy holidays' from people or businesses, no awkward "no I didn't get a Christmas tree - I'm jewish" moments. This is Christian country and folks round here celebrate Christmas - period. A friend from work said to me "isn't that nice...it's much more simple". At the time I said 'yes and no'. Now that I've thought about it, my answer is 'no'.

I want the awkward moments. I want us to remember that people come in more than one flavor and that diversity is an incredibly valuable thing (and a key aspect of 'merica). It's not politically correct overhead - it's a celebration of what makes humanity great.

And so I say to all of you, Happy Holidays! Whether you're Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, or whatever, I hope the coming year is filled with happiness, prosperity, and good health for you and yours.

The G-Cart Lives!

I've recently experienced a really quirky and interesting juxtoposition of my former urban existence with my present southern suburban one - the rebirth of our Granny Cart.

What is a Granny Cart you ask? I guess it's hard to explain if you haven't seen one. Basically it's a tall foldable rectangular shopping cart (er...that is 'Buggy') designed for personal use. Unfortunately the only picture I can find (because I'm too lazy to photograph the one we own) is this wee little one right here:



Now I had always been aware of these carts growing up in suburban New York, but the only people who used them were senior citizen, usually women. I don't remember where I saw them. I don't know what they were used for. They were just some prop in the background that I associated with old people.

In 1999 however I moved to Brooklyn, and these shopping carts took on a whole new meeting. My first exposure came from my good friend Doug (a.k.a Shakeyface) who lived in the apartment downstairs. One day not long after I moved in, I ran into him in front of our building, and lo and behold, he had with him a Granny Cart. It was in fact at that moment that I was first introduced to the term 'Granny Cart', a moniker I found hillarious. I remember being kind of weirded-out by the fact that young hipster Doug had one and directly told him so. Granny Carts were for...well....Grannies. It seemed totally wrong for any 'normal' person to need one, and when Doug suggested I get one as well, I scoffed at the idea. Why on earth did I need some weird geriatric box on wheels?

Oh how naive I was.

Before long I came to realize that just because everything I could possibly need was in walking distance of my apartment, it didn't mean it got magically transported back there. In later years when I started making more jack I got my groceries and laundry delivered, but back in the early days I had to schlep that stuff four or five long blocks home myself. When you're dealing with 75 pounds of bachelor laundry and 8 bags of groceries, that's no small feat. In fact it's nearly impossible without assistance. For many New Yorkers - that assistance is their Granny Cart.

Before long I had one, and not only was I not ashamed, I was proud. Everyone had them. You'd be stupid not to own a G-Cart. I ended up using it all the time and having fun with it performing various one-wheel manuvours, hopping curbs, and wheeling goofily around people and obstacles. It became an essential tool in my urban existance.

But that was then, this is now. In suburban Tennessee there has been no need for the G-Cart, and so it has languished in the garage battered and forgotten like an old children's toy that gets shuffled around and then eventually thrown out. That would have most certainly been the fate of our Granny Cart had not we discovered the wonders of our fireplace (see my earlier post on the subject).

Now, the G-Cart has a new purpose in life shuttling wood from the garage to the wood rack next to the fireplace. It's beat up, I have to force it to open, but the old girl still performs like a champ. It once again has entered the fabric of our lives in an odd collision of my former and current life.

And that's all I have to say about that :)

Yankee Southern Translation

Given the uneven timing of the updates I make to this site, the irony of my last post about having so much more time isn't lost on me. So given that and the wee size of said last post, here's something else.

It feels like this has been done before almost to the point of being tiresome, but I'm going to start a list of the differences in wording/slang I've noticed since moving to Knoxville. Eventually I'll turn this into a permanent feature, but for now I'll just use this post and update it. Here we go (Northern term first, then the Knoxville equivalent):

Shopping Cart = Buggy
License Plate = Tags
Soda = Coke
Winter Jacket/Coat = Parka

Those are the only ones that jump out at me right now. Please send your suggestions using the 'comment' jambo on here, or email me at yankee @ knoxvilleyankee.com

Knoxville Time

I know it's relative and I may completely reverse myself as soon as we have a kid, but I still can't get over how much extra time I have since moving to Knoxville.

This used to be my work-related schedule:

- Wake up at 6:30AM, out of the house by 7AM
- Arrive in Manhattan, drop my wife off at work around 8:15AM - 8:30AM
- Arrive at work around 8:45 - 9AM
- Work all day until 5:30 (which was considered early and branded me a 'non team player')
- Pick wife up at work at 5:45
- Drive back home arriving between 6:45 and 7:15

Now in Tennessee, it goes like this:

- Wake up between 7:30 and 8AM
- Get out of the house by 8:15AM- 8:30AM
- Arrive at work between 8:30AM - 8:45AM
- Work all day until 5:30PM - 5:45M
- Home between 5:45PM - 6PM

Actually now that I'm seeing it in writing it doesn't look like a huge difference, but it sure feels like one. The extra hour of sleep in the morning is wonderful, and with such a short commute, the consequences of oversleeping minimal. Similarly the extra hour in the evening is great - another hour for time with my wife, myself, and my dogs. It adds up, specifically to almost 500 hours a year. That's really nice at present, but so much more important once we have a child.

Score one for Tennessee :)

NY Postscript - TN Connections

Okay...I've lost interest in the NY Trip thread. As time passes my memory is getting dimmer, I think I've already highlighted some interesting themes and contrasts, and I'm ready to move on. For the lone reader who wants to know how it ended, here's the abbreviated version:

- Saturday evening we had dinner at some nice Mexican place on Manhattan's Upper West side with some good friends. Saturday evening we stayed over a a friends house in outer Queens and had a great time staying up late and talking.

- Sunday morning we woke up, went for brunch in our old neighborhood in Brooklyn at our favorite old brunch place, I dropped my wife off in south Brooklyn (her original hood - Bay Ridge) to shop and hang out with her friends, then hung out all day with my best friends in northern Brooklyn (Williamsburg), then ended up back in Bay Ridge for dinner with my wife and her friends, and finally drove back to my Aunt's in Yonkers to crash.

- I forget what we did Monday-Wednesday, but I know our flight was cancelled on Thursday, and we didn't get back to Knoxville until Friday. I'm sure the interim time was spent with my Aunt, with friends, and schlepping around - but like I said, I forget.

So there you have it. If I dug in there would be stuff to say, but I already covered the main themes (balanced nostalgia, pros vs. cons of NY, and ultimately validation of our decision to move).

So then....let me move on to a nice Knoxville moment that occurred this weekend. But before I get into that, there are three foundational pieces of information you should know.

The first centers around the fact that the heating in our home is an issue. We have one HVAC system, two floors, and heat rises, so it's either too cold downstairs and just right upstairs, or just right downstairs and burning upstairs. Either way you lose, but since upstairs is where all our sleeping and comfort rooms are, we preferred to keep it good there and chilly downstairs.

The second fact at hand deals with the layout of our home. There are two main downstairs areas. The first is our living room. It's fairly snug and contains a couch, a love seat, a coffee table, and our big TV which I call Gigantor. The other area is the kitchen, which extends out into a hardwood floor area which we have used as a pseudo dining area. Up until recently, the only thing in there was a big a$$ 8-person bar-height table which we used for dinner parties, occasional meals, but mostly as a temporary place to dump stuff. Most importantly, this room has a fireplace which up until now has been useless. Even if we opened it up, all it would do is warm the shins of whoever was sitting at the big table next to it.

The third and last factor deals with my wife. After over a decade of lung destruction, she quit smoking this weekend, a move motivated by cleaning her system our in preparation for us trying for a kid. Needless to say, she was a bit edgy and we needed to keep busy.

So we've got uneven heating, a furniture layout that prevents use of our fireplace, and a nicotine-crazed woman from Brooklyn. The solution was obvious: redo the layout of our downstairs.

Fast forward: Now the living room stuff is in the extended kitchen area, the fireplace is fully rocking (which is both relaxing and romantic), and our home's feng shui just took a big leap forward.

But that's just the setup. The nice story deals with the wood we needed to fuel this new pimp-pad fireplace-rockin setup. At first we bought bundled wood from Home Deport. I knew it was extremely cost-ineffective to do so, but I was already there buying the fireplace props (poker, log holder, etc.), so I went for it. By that first evening it was all gone. We needed more wood.

The good news was we knew where to get it - the corner of Ebenezer and North Shore. For the past few weekends, we had driven by there and had always seen several guys with pickup trucks full of wood for sale. Sure enough, when we drove over there this past weekend, there were two. I pulled in, went to the guy who was closest, talked about price, and found out I could get his whole truck's worth for $180. - by my estimation enough for the whole winter.

Now the guy I approached about the wood, whom I now know as Anthony, is the point of this story. Given the circumstances and nature of what I was buying, I guess I semi-consciously assumed that they guys selling wood down there would be...well let's just say rural (cue banjos and toothless grins). To my credit it was a subtle prejudice - Tennessee has quickly taught me to give people more credit - but I still had my doubts. I can't say I *expected* the guy to be...er rural, and I wouldn't have held it against him regardless, but I was braced for it.

Now while it is true that Anthony was definitely from the blue collar set, as I got to know him better over the next hour or two, I once again was shamed by my preconceived notions and humbled at the person I found. It started out with a basic display of trust and respect. As soon as we started talking, I got a strong sense that he was a good and honest person. The way he expressed himself, the way he plied his wares, the way he carried himself - I got a good vibe. I told him I had to run to the grocery store real quick, grab some cash, and would be back in 20 minutes. He said he would close up the truck, not sell anything, and wait for me.

20 minutes later we were back, and arrived to discover some other Farragut yuppie trying to buy wood off our man. As promised, we could see he was politely telling them his wood was already spoken for, and after a quick thumbs up from me, he pulled out of his corner lot and followed us back to our house.

Over the next half hour we both unloaded the wood from his truck and piled it up in my garage. His fee covered the stacking, but I couldn't just stand there and watch or go in the house and pretend there wasn't a human being outside. And so we both unloaded and stacked, and talked the whole time. I found out that he had lived in Long Island for a while, then Florida for a longer while, and then finally ended up in Knoxville about four or five years ago. He was 24 or 25 and lived with his parents not far from the lot we met up at. He was a wood man. In warm weather he did hardwood floors. In the winter he was a full time firewood guy with several regular clients.

But aside from the facts and figures, it was the person who really impressed me. He was a rustic man with a rugged profession, but at the same time very...I don't know that sensitive is the word...but someone who was in touch with human feeling and willing to express it. He loved our dogs and had no shame in loving them. He was both interesting and interested. He was a good conversationalist, had a good sense of humor, and extended a genuine trust and kind heartedness that really took me by surprise. He was mature beyond his years. He was outgoing, but humble. In the stories he told especially those involving other people, there was always a clear theme of kindness.

Needless to say, I was very impressed with this random wood man. I'm usually very guarded when it comes to new people in my life. I'm incredibly short on time and I tend to over-extend myself. I also have a habit of becoming too friendly too quickly and having to draw back once I see what's behind the curtain. But in this case, I didn't feel the hesitation I normally feel, and when he suggested we trade numbers and hang out at some point, I was happy to acquiesce, a decision I don't regret.

After we were done we went inside and hung out for a half hour or so before he had to take off, an exit which was exercised with excellent timing and social grace. I don't know if I'll hear from him again, but I hope I do even to the point where I might actually call him. But even if I don't, once again my faith in Knoxville has been renewed. I met a 'real' person. Someone with depth, someone with character, someone who I respected. It didn't matter what we did or did not have in common. There are some people that transcend common interest, background and the rest. Finding people like that was next to impossible no matter where you live. Just knowing that it's possible in Tennessee is huge.

If anyone in the West Knoxville needs firewood from a good man, let me know.

NY Trip - Day 4

Finally by Saturday we were starting to feel better. The Yankee germs from another time zone were on the retreat.

The first plan of the day was to go meet my wife's friend Kathleen, her Husband Nick, and their baby girl Madison at this giant mega-mall called the Palisades Center. My wife and I had worked with both Kathleen and Nick at Yahoo!, we spent a lot of time with them at our wedding, we'd been around when their daughter was born, so it was good to see them.

The Palisades Center is located in Rockland County, just north of New Jersey, in the the thin strip New York that runs up the western side of the Hudson River. It's so big, it's obnoxious. You get exhausted just walking around it. I get annoyed at some subconscious level even thinking about the place. But it's the perfect meeting place for Nick and Kathleen, sitting at the halfway point between our base in Westchester and their home in northern suburban New Jersey, and also full of good place to eat and manage a baby. So around noon, my aunt, wife, and I headed out from Yonkers, across the Hudson River via the Tappen Zee Bridge, and into Rockland on our way to the Palisades.

We met with them, ate, hung out for a few hours, and eventually took off. There's not much to tell about the day itself, but two subject did come up which touch on the theme of KnoxvileYankee.

The first dealt with the change of work environments. At the time of the conversation, Nick was still working at Yahoo! HotJobs, a company that was bought by Yahoo! only to then have it's culture, innovation, technology, and staff systematically destroyed by several waves of terrible management. Most of the people who had been there in the five years I'd been there are long gone. It's a freak of nature that Nick still even had a job there - like a terminally ill patient miraculously living years past their life expectancy, alive but still in terrible pain. To make matters even worse, he was now going to work at the company I went to after Yahoo! - WebMD - which was equally as hellish - a slave-driving, people-last, pressure cooker that unlike HotJobs produces excellent work but at the expense of the slaves rowing the ship.

That's a harsh contrast to the workplace I have now here in Tennessee, the workplace that served as one of the most important elements in our decision to move here. For starters, the company I work at now truly does put people first in almost every regard - in the benefits they offer, in the tone and execution of their policy, in the allowances they make for people in tough situations. For instance when gas prices went up last year, they cut everyone in the company a $100 check. When prices went up again, they cut everyone another $100 check. With over 2000 people in the company, that's almost a half a million dollars in unplanned for ethically-driven expense for the company. And that's just one example - there are many.

In addition, my company recognizes that work should not be people's #1 priority - family should be - and backs that up by strongly advocating an average 40-hour work week. From executives, to managers, to people on the floor - most everyone clears out around 5:30PM. There isn't some Fred Flintstone unionized clock-punching mentality about it. During the work day we get lots of work done and set a high bar on commitment, productivity, and quality. But there is the persistent recognition that none of that should trump putting your kids to bed, or tending to your health, or eating dinner with your loved ones, or running the errands that need to be run to support life. Sure some people work more than a 40-hour work week - I sure do - but it's by choice. There is no pressure subtle or overt on anyone to do so.

Needless to say, I offered to try to help get Nick a job with us - but unfortunately they're not hiring, and even if they were, they could probably find local talent rather than pay to relocate yet another Yankee, one from Jersey no less.

The second KnoxvilleYankeeish subject that struck me from our day with Nick and Kathleen was that of parenting. While still in NY, they were one of the first set of friends we had to have a kid, and by far one of the new families with whom we had the most contact during and after Kathleen's pregnancy. Seeing them go through the experience, seeing the benefits inherent in having one of them stay home with the baby but also the drawbacks of a long Manhattan commute on the other, definitely played into our decision to move to Tennessee whether we knew it at the time or not.

Hearing about Nick's long commute and tough working situation validated my new work environment and 5 minute commute. Hearing about how engaged Kathleen was with Madison's development, health, happiness, and life further reinforced the decision for my wife to stay home (and for my Aunt to come live with us next year to help).

But more than helping confirm one of our key reasons for moving, it was also just good to spend time with them as parents. Feeding, walking, playing - talking to the kid and about the kid - it was both informative and comforting to us as we move closer and closer to becoming parents ourselves. It was also good to see how focused they were, how much their life revolved around their kid. When using 'kids' as a selling point for Knoxville, I always say "and once we have a kid it won't matter if we're in Alaska - we'll have everything we need and have time for right at home". Our day with Nick and Kathleen showed me that this was more than a nervously issued humorous platitude - it's a reality. Having a child will redefine the focus and center of our universe. Those warehouse parties I miss in Brooklyn would be as distant to me in NY as they are here in Knoxville. But that's an explanation about how being in Knoxville is not bad. The real excitement lies in the reasons why it's good - and when it comes to raising a kid - it's night and day compared to NY.

So those were the lessons of the day. Working in Knoxville - Good. Raising a kid in Knoxville - Good. Never let it be said (by KnoxvilleYankee.com's lone critic or anyone else) that I'm a hater on Knoxville.

There was more that happened Saturday evening worth mentioning, but I'll stop here for now.