Hey there, Listserve Folks!

I''ve learned that's how we say hello in South Carolina in the two years I've been here. "Hey there." Having lived in New York, New Hampshire, Texas, England and now here, I found I needed to pick up the local language each and every time, if only to understand what people were saying to me. In New York it was "pass the peas," but the same request in Texas goes something like this: "Um, Leann, I see you got the peas sitting there by your right elbow." The meanings are the same. Exactly the same.

But back to hello. My favorite greeting is in College Station, Texas where my kids went to school. It's "howdy." If you ever head to Texas A&M, remember that one word and you're golden. Everyone will say it to you and you will say it back. It's automatic. It will make you smile.

What you've probably surmised is I am about three times as old as most of you who read this list. But from what I've been absorbing over the last several years, I don't believe that matters much. This listserve experience is a dialogue I enjoy and learn from. I am a writer and learning about human nature is my business. That life lesson learning curve? Very steep. Very complicated. And not really a curve. More like a spiral staircase. I believe it was Hegel who said that history is a spiral. We must go down at times to go higher. But we will continue upward.

So hey there, list serve folks, from a South that has many flaws and far to go on that staircase of social change, but gosh, it's beautiful here.


Leann Sweeney
leann_sweeney[AT]hotmail.com
South Carolina, USA

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