May 31, 2005
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Dear Hearts and Gentle People
When I interviewed for residency in Norfolk, Virginia, the residents I had dinner with tried to school me in local populations. “The Virginians who live close to D.C. are very different from those who live near North Carolina,” they tried to tell me. They went on to name the different cities they were from, around the state, almost all of which were on the coast.
“What about Roanoke?” I said.
And everyone stared at me. One guy said, “Oh, they’re all backward. We don’t consider them Virginians.”
Someone told me recently that Roanoke is full of gangs now, and it’s not how I once knew it. Even so, it’s funny how, even before that snooty guy’s comment, I was already considering not putting Norfolk on my Rank List. One of their foreign medical graduates basically spent the entire evening apologizing to me that she wasn’t an American citizen. I felt sorry for her, because someone must have been pretty cruel to her to give her such a complex!
She was already a physician back in her own country, and she had nothing to apologize for.
I remember those “backward” people in western Virginia very fondly. When I think of good people, my neighbors and friends from that part of the country come to mind. I feel sorry for people who never know that feeling of a place where they feel they belonged. Out of all the places I’ve been, and all the people I have met, I have never encountered as kind of people as lived in those parts.
Dear Hearts and Gentle PeopleI love those dear hearts and gentle people
Who live in my home town,
Because those dear hearts and gentle people
Will never ever let you down.They read the Good Book
From Friday ’til Monday.
That’s how the weekend goes.
I’ve got a dream house
I’ll build there one day,
With picket fence and ramblin’ rose.I feel so welcome each time I return
That my happy heart keeps laughin’ like a clown.
I love the dear hearts and gentle people
Who live and love in my home town.There is a Buccaneer for sale in my area, and I’m agitated that I am not in a financial situation to purchase it. It would be nice to have a boat with a spinnaker, but paying the electric bills is nice too.
