My wife’s great-grandmother passed away earlier this week, so Thursday morning, Caroline and I drove 10 hours to Huntsville, Alabama for the funeral.
With both Alabama and Arkansas being southern states and also located fairly close to each other, many people, especially over-generalizing Yankees*, would probably think that they were very similar. I am sure there are many similarities, but there are also some glaring differences, and I’m going to briefly mention a few I noticed over the past few days.
1. There are way more southern accents in Alabama. Now, Fayetteville might be somewhat of a high-brow locale compared to much of the rest of Arkansas, but I’ve also lived in more rural Searcy, Arkansas, and there is still no comparison: the southern twang is much more prevalent in Alabama.
2. Apparently, there are Old School, non-Supercenter Wal-Marts in Alabama. In my part of Arkansas at least, this is not the case.
3. Funerals are way different. Not only was the funeral at a local funeral home instead of the church that Caroline’s great-grandmother attended, but the family also sat up on a stage off to the side, out of sight of everyone else. Once the funeral was over, a curtain closed over the stage; I guess so the family could have privacy while looking at the casket. Different.
4. The Alabama/Auburn rivalry is way intense. Being from Arkansas, where the Razorbacks get top-billing in everything, this is completely foreign to me. I think it’s neat having the vast majority of the state unified in support of a team, but coming from a state with no real rival, the intense rivalry thing seems pretty cool too.
5. According to a sign we passed, in Alabama, coon dogs are apparently a very, very big deal. At least, more so than they are here.
*Yes, the ironic word choice was intentional.
Another thing that is different about Arkansas are those freaky yield exits on some of the interstates and highways.
ReplyDeleteYeah, we don't really have those up here, but I know what you are talking about.
ReplyDeleteI had never seen them until I was down at Harding and was in Little Rock one weekend. I think the first time I drove through them, I almost wrecked.
Huntsville is actually a pretty modern area compared to Montgomery (which is the deep south).
ReplyDeleteI didn't mean to make it sound like I was talking down Huntsville; it's a pretty nice place.
ReplyDeleteI was just a little surprised by the amount and degree of differences I noticed in two places that I think would generally be lumped together in the same category.
I, too, have driven past the sign that read, "Coon Dog Cemetary." For a long time I wondered if it was a cemetary for coon dogs or a cemetary for humans at a community named "Coon Dog." Even though I had this cleared up for me a few years ago by a resident of Iuka, Miss., I enjoyed the photos and the link.
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