Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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SEPTEMBER 10-16, 2014 UCW 5 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM MARGARET DICKSON, Contributing Writer, COMMENTS? Editor@upandcom- ingweekly.com.. 910.484.6200. Not Your Grandfather's North Carolina by MARGARET DICKSON THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET North Carolina is hot, hot, hot! This is not just because it is September, a month which other states think of as the beginning of fall, but one which summer still claims in our part of the world. North Carolina — one might argue the entire South — is culturally hot. We and people throughout other — dare I say "less blessed" states" — and in lands across the oceans cannot get enough of our food, our language, our social customs, our politics and all that defines us as residents of the Old North State. Have you picked up any of these publications lately? Our State or the inexplicably named Garden and Gun? How about Town and Country or New York magazines? How about the "Style" section of the New York Times? They are full of articles about our food — pimento cheese, shrimp and grits, boiled peanuts and the great divide between east and west in North Carolina barbeque. I am an eastern girl myself. There are even pit- cooked barbeque joints in Manhattan doing booming business. Then there is beach music, NASCAR and its origin, moonshine — now sold in state run ABC stores, the Bible Belt, college basketball, colorful leaves in the mountains, red clay and the all purpose, ever handy "y'all" and "bless your heart." As novelist Susan Kelly, wife of a Fayetteville native, observed in a recent issue of Our State, when we are alone among our own tribe of fellow North Carolinians we lapse into our own quirky version of the King's English with "gunna" and "Imon." Translation of both — "going to" as in I am going to order scrambled eggs with hot sauce. Let's not even get into the national coverage of North Carolina's United States Senate race between incumbent Senator Kay Hagan and challenger North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis. Spending in this contest by outside groups tops every other Senate race in the nation, and national media cannot quit talking about it. It is surpassing even the epic Hunt-Helms senatorial battle in political infamy. I am, of course, a Tar Heel born and a Tar Heel bred, and someday I will be a Tar Heel dead, although I am hoping that last state of being is a long way down the road. But not everyone in North Carolina is. One of the Precious Jewels emailed me a fascinating New York Times article with interactive charts showing who lives in North Carolina and where they came from. Not surprisingly, in 1900 a full 95-percent of our state's inhabitants were born here. Fast forward to 1950, and change is apparent but slow with 87-percent of us native born. By 1990, the pace had picked up with 70-percent of us having been born on Tar Heel soil. But look what has happened in just over two decades. In 2012, only 58-percent of those of us living in North Carolina were born here, indicating that in a few short years, home-grown Tar Heels will be in the minority. So how did the rest of us get here? North Carolina is among the fastest growing states in the country, particularly in the Triangle area. Eight percent came from states in the Northeast other than New York which sent plenty of its residents, too, and 9 percent of our residents were born outside the United States. My grandparents — born, raised and buried in Kinston, North Carolina, would be shocked to their foundations to think that nearly half of us came from somewhere else. I have to believe that all this new blood has enriched our state and our community. I relish our diversity in food nowadays — Asian to Mediterranean to Cuban and everything in between, compared to a few pizza parlors, breakfast spots and downtown eateries I recall from my childhood. I love the fact that the Precious Jewels attended school with children from many other countries and cultures, and that they introduced us to their food and we gave them pimento cheese sandwiches. My hope is that North Carolina can embrace newcomers and what they bring without losing our own strengths— the educational systems that built our state, the proud heritage of families and ways of life that have been here since before we were North Carolina, and — yes — the peculiarities that are near and dear to old timers and the recently-arrived alike. Just like reformed smokers and newly anointed church goers, freshly arrived North Carolinians can be — shall we say? — wildly enthusiastic about the attributes of their adopted state. My all time favorite expression of this sentiment came from a woman I met not long ago who loves all things Tar Heel although she has yet to acquire a taste for drippy boiled peanuts. I could tell by her accent that she was not from our neck of the woods, but I asked anyway from whence she came. She named a state in the Northeast and then smiled and gave this perfect response. "But I got here as soon as I could." Contest&RequestLine: 910-764-1073 www.christian107.com KeepingtheMainThing...theMainThing. visit us online Focus on the Family 20 Countdown Magazine Adventures in Odyssey Serving Fayetteville Over 50 Years! 484-0261 1304 Morganton Rd. Mon-Sat: 6am-10pm Sun: 7am-2:30 pm Daily Specials • Breakfast • Lunch • Dinner Fresh Seafood • Hand Cut Steaks • Homemade Desserts • Italian & Greek • Children's Menu Banquet rooms available up to 100 guests