Moving to Franklin, TN (or: Southern living for non-Rednecks)
 

Hi,

I know this is going to come off as incredibly uninformed, but I am wondering what it's like to move to a small town in the South. I might be moving to Franklin. I am used to typical suburban life in the Northeast and have never been to the South at all, outside of Florida.

DO TELL.

also, what is it like working in the IT field? basic right-out-of-school IT jobs (call center, network monkey, etc).

Franklin like just south of nashville. it is nice. it has a historic downtown thats really nice. Some parts are kinda ritsy. I live in Nashville but have spent some timeout there for soccer. Its not terrible i have a friend in school at soem fashion school there and she loves it.
Good luck with the move though

Franklin is a very nice suburb of Nashville and has a very nice LBS that sells the crap out of Orbeas. Franklin is a historic town but also home to a monster mall on I-65 for all the suburbanites. Real close to Nashville, which is HUGE.

Lots of very nice riding in Tennessee. Lots of hills, too.

I live in Huntsville, Alabama; just down I-65.

People in the South are very nice and friendly; it freaks Northerners out at first. You'll notice a lot more churches; churches everywhere. Everywhere. And football, particularly college football, is the most important thing in the world; absolutely rabid fans down here.

Don't be offended if somebody calls you honey or sugar or yes ma'am, no ma'am. Or holds the door open for you or carries heavy stuff for you

And it's hot and muggy for 7 months out of the year, nice cool mornings and warm afternoons for 3 months and about a month or so of what we call cold weather. Like it gets below freezing a few times.

edit: I hope you like fried food.

And grits. mmmmmmmm, grits. ;)

Also, when people in the South say they are fixing to do something, it means they are about to do something. As in: I'm fixing to go to town. You need anything?

And all soft drinks are "Cokes."
Order iced tea, and you'll be asked, "Sweetened or Unsweetened."

Like everywhere else, be nice and people will be nice to you.

And please don't use the word "redneck," unless you absolutely know who you're talking to. I moved to Nashville twenty years ago from Minnesota, and though there's still some culture shock -- religion is much more of a social force here -- people here really aren't that much different from anywhere else. Many people from elsewhere in the US are laboring under Southern stereotypes taken largely from Gomer Pyle and the Beverly Hillbillies. I know people who are still pretty "country," but overwhelmingly everyone here wears shoes and knows how to read.

The biggest thing that could damage your welcome is to assume those stereotypes are true and act accordingly. You will be the new arrival, and your job is to adapt to your new environment, not to compare it to where you came from or to try and change it.

You might want to check out city-data.com forums. The locals there can give you plenty of information on the area.

You hit it right on the head. I moved from Seattle in 2001. Get used to bring called "Yankee" and if you have no prejudism or racist tendencies, be prepared to see plenty.

As far as driving, turn signals are never a consideration.

I've been here 7 years this Oct. and have told you what I have seen. I'm in Ringgold, GA., just slightly south of Chattanooga. Down here, you take your life in your hands by commuting by bike. I wish I could say it's not so, but I'd be lying if I did.

It's not really so bad, but I intend to move back to Seattle to retire.

Wow. This is the most useful and polite thread I have seen on this forum.

Maybe Southern Gentlemen? :p

-Rob.

The "redneck" part was, of course, a joke.

The thing that bothered me the most about living in the south (GA and TN) was the weather. Summer is really long and oppressive. I really started going crazy my last summer in Georgia. I only rode in the middle of the night, I kept my blinds shut and never left the A/C during the day. Thats one thing that really became a big quality of life issue for me. I just can't live in consant 90+ degrees (more of a deep south thing).

As far as culture goes, major cities in the south are like little islands of sanity where people are generally normal and ultimately not any different from people in cities in the north, midwest, etc. However, as soon as you leave the suburbs it can quickly become very country. This is less true with cities with HUGE suburban sprawl like Atlanta, where the urban sphere of influence can extend pretty far.

I actually went to high school in Berks county PA outside of Philly and I can tell you that that place is pretty similar in a lot of ways to any rural town in the south. It has more to do with rural vs. city than anything inherent to the south or north or midwest or whatever, IMO.

Franklin is pretty cool, lots of ritzy places nearby. See Cool Springs and Brentwood (huge houses everywhere). My fiance saw Nicole Kidman and her husband at a bookstore there a few weeks ago. Definitely not the worst place in the world to be.

And stay the hell away from Jasper TN. Do not even stop for gas. Don't doubt me on this one.

When you talk, slow down.

Yew yankees talk waaaay too damn fast fer us. ;)

Also, if you intend on attending any social functions, learn to make a casserole.

Party potatoes, cheese eggs, pulled pork, string bean casserole, BBQ chicken, caramel cake.....I put on 30 lbs in the first 45 days I lived here, after weighing 175 lbs for over 30 years. True story.

I'm from Franklin. Awesome place to live. You'll love it.

I grew up in Franklin and went to high school there. Visit there all the time.
Its changed a lot since I was a kid. My family moved there in 1984.
Its now completely overrun by people from mostly other places due to all the companies that have moved to the area and the fact that its really close to Nashville.
SUVs rule the road and yuppies love it.

Its a weird place for me. Sometime right after i graduated high school or just before, the town outlawed skateboarding in the city limits because they didnt like all the 'skate punks'.
Yes, it was illegal.
Now there is a concrete skate park that the city just built and a new skate shop. Wacky place.

I often wonder if the law is still on the books and they just forgot about it.

I have a theory that one can find one's 'people' anywhere. It may be difficult to find them, but they are there.

you haven't been enough places yet. I'm pretty sure ten sleep wy doesn't have a large furry scene.

depends on your background and what you actually know. the differences between it jobs are so big in many cases, they really can't be classified as the same thing.

ps, after reading this thread, i've decided that franklin, tn sucks.

Fried food and BBQ. Here is a good rule of thumb if you are a smoker. Anywhere you can put BBQ on stuff in the South is a place where you can smoke (at least, it used to be that way).

If you can make it down to Texas, you can get Texmex. I live to visit Texas and eat Texmex.

Actually TN has passed the 'no smoking in restaurants' law like a lot of other states.

I lived between San Antonio, TX and Biloxi, MS for about 3 years.

Bbattle's got it right about the weather - it's murder in the summer, but early spring & late fall are absolutely perfect, and winter is great - it's "cold" if it drops below freezing overnight. While I was in San Antonio they got their first snowfall in about 10 years, which was hardly even a flurry by northern standards, and didn't stick around for more than a couple hours. It was a big deal though - the locals talked about it for weeks.

I've never had anyone in the south ask me what kind of tea I wanted. In my experience, if you order "tea" at a restaurant, you'll get sweet tea every time. If you want unsweetened tea, a.k.a. northern tea, you have to order it as "unsweetened tea." If you aquire a taste / addiction for sweet tea, as I did, just remember how many calories are in a glass of the stuff, or you'll gain weight quick.

In some areas, soda is called "soda," and in others, it's called "Coke." As in: "What kind of Coke do you want to drink?" This becomes particularly noticible the closer you get to Atlanta, home of the Coca-Cola world headquarters. It's worth noting that soda is never called "pop" anywhere in the south, though it may occasionally be referred to as "soda pop.".

Food, in general, is a big part of the culture in the south. Even the food at chain restaurants like Denny's is often better (I know what you're thinking, but I'm serious), because the cooks tend to do things their own way (sadly, this does not extend to fast food establishments, which serve the same mass produced pre-processed swill that they serve everywhere else). Southern breakfast is always excelent (biscuits & gravy, chicken fried steak, grits, eggs, and real hashbrowns... mmmm), and I still maintain that it's impossible to find real BBQ any further north than Kentucky.

The only food that isn't better in the deep south is coffee. It's against their genetic makeup somehow - they just can't take a "venti nonfat sugar free iced vanilla late" seriously.

Language is a bit different in the south, but you'll get used to it. You'll find some interesting contractions in everyday use (i.e. "y'ant'a," as in: "I'm fixin' ta' head t' the store, y'ant'a come along?"), and might even find yourself using some of them. I still say "ya'll" practically everyday, and I've been back in Ohio for 4 years.

I found the south a fun and interesting place to live, and made many friends there. I hope you have a similarly enjoyable experience.

-DR


Edit: I hope you don't mind insects. The south has some of the largest, weirdest kinds of bugs I've ever seen. Most of them are harmless though.

When they did this in Seattle, the revenue for businesses that had to conform increased by at least 40%, even though most owners whined about the change. I think the PI is where I read the results I've posted. Early '90's?

Considering tobacco got it's big "break" in the south, they did the same whining here.

Dr. Robert, with all due respect, ""venti nonfat sugar free iced vanilla late" is NOT real coffee. ;)

Whenever the words "nonfat" or "sugarfree" are used, the food ceases to be real food. Coffee is hot, tea is cold. I'll never forget ordering tea in Syracuse and getting a cup of hot tea.

And "venti"?

(also, it's latte)

Almost overnight, the South became blanketed with Starbucks. I swear they must've trucked the stores in over the weekend or something. There must be ten of them here in Huntsville alone.


I cannot believe nobody has yet let Peabodypride in on Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Unbelievably tasty, unbelievably bad for you. Fun to watch the dough float down the river of grease, then slide under the waterfall of sugar.

I want to hear more about Jasper TN !!! Gimme da skoop!

More southernisms:

Mash = press, as in "Ah mashed the button and it tore up..."

Tore = Broke, broken, damaged

Buggy = Shopping cart, handtruck, dolly etc

Already stated: Fixin' = About to do something

Directions are given with landmarks, stoplights and stop signs in mind

"Y'all head down the 95 for 3 lights and turn left at the funeral home. At the second light turn left and then..."

And sp00ki, after reading your post, I've decided once again I'll never want to go to Philly again...