What I learned from listening to carefully chosen words in North Carolina

I guess people here can tell I am from the North

I am on vacation in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and I got the chance to speak to some people here.  Because I have been so lucky getting people to talk to me about the direction of the country, I assumed that people here would be equally chatty.

NOT QUITE.  People did speak to me, but they did not say much.  What they did say showed me the gap between my world and theirs.

The first woman I spoke to, Pat, does not think the country is headed in the right direction.  Pat, who  works at the Rite-Aid,  is not happy that historical flags and monuments are being taken down.  I did not press her, but I am pretty sure she was talking about the removal of Confederate flags, statues, and monuments.  Pat said that these items are part of our history, and we should respect that.  She said that "it wasn't right; actually, it was right in the beginning, but now we are moving on."

I appreciate Pat's belief.  I, too, think it is important to know our history - to never forgot.  However, I don't think that we need to glorify it.  I didn't ask Pat if she thought it would be a good idea for Germany to have statues of Hitler so that the German people could "remember their history".  No one wants to talk about Hitler, and I wasn't about to mention him to Pat.

The next lady, Michelle, had just gotten off of her shift at work.  She was kind enough to give me a minute of her time.  She said that her husband talks about a Bible passage dealing with End of Days.  I assumed that she and he believed that we were just about there.  She lamented the divisions and selfishness in the country and throughout the world.  Michelle was born and raised in Currituck County - one of the coastal counties near Kitty Hawk.

I spoke with a woman, Anna, from Jamaica.  She looked scared to talk to me, but thought that our government needed to work differently with other countries.

The last woman, whose name I did not get, is from Maryland.  She was with friends who were about to go into the Walmart.  I was the least comfortable speaking with her - she appeared to be smirking - payback, I guess, for all the snark from the "liberal elite".

This woman did feel that the country is headed in the right direction, because we have a leader with common sense, who is bringing people into his administration, who also have common sense.  The implication was that Obama did not have any.

Even though I did not encounter any chatter boxes, I feel that the experience of listening to people in North Carolina was useful.  I am starting to get how much people like me take for granted  the "proper way to think about things."  And how not everybody thinks the way I do.