Welcome to NC! We spent nearly four years of flying weekends searching for The Promised Land. We loved the mountains, but water beckoned. We looked from the outskirts of Philadelphia to the Georgia coast, and along the Alabama/northwest Florida coast, and kept coming back to a beautiful charming village on the Albemarle Sound of NC... and have been content here for eight years.
Good stuff:
-people take care of their history here, instead of tearing it down for new and fashionable, so the buildings are pretty. My church is 300 years old, some of the downtown buildings date from the early 1700s. Really, really pretty.
-the locals are cordial and welcoming. Haven't been flipped off a' la Philly since we got here.
-there's a real sense of community. Even as a newcomer, you're part of things here, if you want to be. (Don't come here and try to shove people around with your Brooklyn accent, though. They don't shove all that easy. They smile politely and change the subject.)
-No traffic to speak of. Honking is from Canada geese, not trucks and taxi cabs.
-Local businesses are helpful and competent. I walk in the hardware store downtown and have my choice of employees who know where to find what I want. And, if I need enough of it, they'll special order and match BigBox's price.
-If I can't find it, the internet has it, and UPS/FedEx delivers to my door.
-The old-timer neighbors will show up on your doorstep before you get the moving van unloaded with a cake or heaping plate of cookies, chat politely, and then get out of your way, but not before asking if there's anything you need. Be sure to get a name and phone number-- you'll find those good people a fount of good information.
-Did I mention how beautiful this area is? Cypress trees growing out into the bay, expanse of blue water transitioning almost seamlessly into sky...
Less good:
-work ethic? Well, you gotta understand, people don't respond to 'pushy' here. And there are some holidays not observed in NooYawk, primarily the First Day of (you-name-it) Season-- deer, duck, bow-hunting, striper--. Ain't nobody comin' to paint yer house that day. Relax. They'll git 'er dunn, eventually, and the price will be fair. And you will listen to a lot of great stories about who used to live in this house, or the character next door. Listen. It's worth it. You can't get this sort of entertainment on TV.
-Weather: I don't know what y'all are talkin' about. Sure it gets hot here. But I've been in Philly when you could fry an egg on the sidewalk. At least we generally have a pleasant little breeze off the water. We get several inches of snow almost every year, enough to be pretty, but hardly enough to shovel. My peonies are happy, but so are my banana trees!
-Racism? Can't say I've noticed it in this small town, surely not as much as I saw in Ohio. But then, we're about evenly split, here black and white, and have been for hundreds of years. Many Hispanic farm and construction workers, too. Nearly all folks just trying to earn a living and raise a family. When we first moved south, to upstate SC, my husband's new boss said of the violent subcultures there, "Jus' don't make a pass at any girl wearing a tube top and keep your pusher paid up, and you'll be fine." (apparently the rednecks mostly prey on each other, and so do the inner city blacks.)
-Jobs? There you got me. If you want a job around here, you'd better bring your own. Our once-thriving textile businesses went to Mexico and points south some years ago. Our luxury-sport-fishing-boat-building industry is struggling. The real estate boom has busted, because the folks in Joizy can't sell their property there in order to move here.
-Politics, local and State? ----*Sigh.*----- back-slappin', crooked good ol' boys. Not NC's finest attribute. Hope springs eternal... November's a 'comin'.
In short, if you're coming here, at least to my small corner of paradise, leave your impatience, your smug superiority, your rosy view of how much better it was back 'home', your assumption that 'somebody else' will contribute to the local charities and pick up the trash, back wherever you moved from. Come with a cheerful attitude of becoming part of this community and finding things you love to become involved in. You'll be 'home' here before you know it.
-
