Brooklyn Accent in Florida
A Southern Bell with a Brooklyn Accent.
I was born in the South and I have been plagued by a Brooklyn accent my entire life. It has been a bit of a burden given that many of the southerns are still conflicted about the civil war. I have often wondered where my Brooklyn Accent came from? And why do I have it? It is not something I aspired to. English wasn't even my first language. The best to my knowledge my Mom was from Long Island and that is a very different dialect. And yet, in the south I was beaten to a pulp for being a "Yankee" and a traitor to the Republic. Which really floored me given as I wasn't that into history as a child. It made me a bit of an outsider but not for long.
My neighbor had a grand daughter from New York and the grand daughter understood. So much so when I was nine, I and my seven year old sister hop on Eastern Airlines and flew back to New York. It was right after the bicentennial. And there was a serial killer about that Summer but it didn't effect us. And to my nine year old ears did I become completely surprised to have reached the promised land of languages...New York. Everyone I interacted that nteracted with me accepted me as a New Yorker. I wasn't traitor or a Yankee but a child once again. Besides no Dodger fan really likes the Yankees it is counter intuitive. If it wasn't for continual need for a taxi and my fear of the people with the trash bags on their arms picking up their dog poop, I would have been completely adjused. I believe there was a dogging curbing law back them. And those people with those bags on their arms picking up dog poop did seem strange to me. Beside the aforementioned, I would have fit in wonderfully.
But sadly, I had to return to the South. Actually not so sadly, I wasn't a big city person and I did miss my Mom and my friends. When I returned home. I explained to my Mother I had found our people and they lived in New York. And my Mother laughed as she explained. The Dodgers summer train here and you are surrounded by mean children and New Yorkers. My Mother's family had been apart of the Great Social Experiement in Brooklyn to integrate Baseball players.
Mom had told me the stories of the great segretion in professional sports and how Brooklyn agreed Baseball would no longer be segrated. All the fans from every diversity woudl gather together at Ebbs Field to watch the Dodgers play. Jackie Robinson was a star and he follwoed the Ddgers all the way down to Florida. But there were other star as well. Saddy Kaulfix, Duke Snyder and Johnny Poderous just to name a few. But the biggest and brightest stars of all were the Dodger Fans who lived, breathed and welcomed diversity within Baselball and their lives.