From Sweet Tea Drinkin’ Southerner to Bay Bum

You don’t know me.

And I’m getting to know you.

My family and I recently packed our lives into the back of two vehicles and made the trek from Georgia to Maryland. It wasn’t quite as harrowing as The Oregon Trail. Nobody got dysentery. Nobody had a hostile encounter with a rattlesnake. No wheels came off. But have you ever tried a twelve-hour car ride with children and a dog who is on a potty strike?

I have. The verdict is still out on whether I’ll recover.

I’m sure some of you are wondering what could possibly compel a Georgia boy to relocate 790 miles north. Wellsir, I’ll tell you.

The first and most important reason is healthcare. You see, The Woman Who Shares My Name is chronically ill. Maryland has Johns Hopkins — and better insurance. I’ve also learned that when it comes to healthcare and several other quality-of-life issues, this state tends to make laws and regulations that favor families over businesses. Georgia is still recovering from being burned to the ground over 160 years ago, and a fair number of its elected officials haven’t gotten over it either, so they don’t pass laws as much as toss around sentiments.

I also knew it was time to pull up stakes when a man named Bubba Longgrear declared himself a candidate for state school superintendent. I just couldn’t take another Bubba on the ballot. In the time I lived in Georgia, the governors read like the roster at a cow-tipping invitational — Joe Frank, Zell, Roy and Sonny — before we finally arrived at governors with more conventional names like Nathan and Brian. Though Brian pronounces it Brine, so we weren’t entirely out of the woods.

There were other reasons, too. My dad’s family settled on the Virginia side of the Chesapeake Bay, and I’ve been hearing stories about its beauty my entire life. Then I came up for a visit and fell in love. I can absolutely understand why eight or so generations of my people decided this was the place for them.

Then there’s weather. I hear y’all — is y’all acceptable here? Or do you prefer folks? You all? Everyone? Youse guys? I’m still workshopping it — anyway, I hear you actually experience four distinct seasons up here, and I’d like to give that a try. Back home, summer runs from mid-April to approximately Thanksgiving. I have spent more than one Christmas standing outside in shorts, wondering if I missed a memo.

If you spot me in November wearing a fleece vest like it’s a parka, please extend some grace. Where I come from, that vest was a formal coat.

So here we are. We are under contract on a home in Havre de Grace, which means Bumbling Around The Bay is exactly what it sounds like — a Georgia transplant, quite literally, bumbling around the bay trying to become a proper Marylander.

So far, I like the scenery. I like the community. I am in awe of how much American history sits within a day trip’s drive. I am learning to appreciate Old Bay. I will work up the courage to try crabs eventually, probably sometime around the fourth or fifth time someone looks horrified that I haven’t yet. And I’m going to have to make my peace with the fact that approximately half the restaurants up here do not serve real sweet tea. I’ll get there.

This column will be about that journey — learning the rhythms of a new state, watching my kids navigate a new life, and sharing whatever absurdity unfolds along the way. Because with The Woman Who Shares My Name, two wild boys, a puppy who destroys everything, and me, the journalist with the cynical eye, there is bound to be absurdity.

Follow along if you’d like. And if you read something in this column that offends or displeases you — well, to quote a fellow Georgian from literature:

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”