[2/14/2003 11:38:56 PM | Bryce Martin]

SKEWED SOUTHERN MANNERS
by Bryce Martin

Southerners, by most all accounts, have a lock on politeness, reverence to traditional manners, and overall goodwill. You cannot be unaware of all the catch phrases - "southern hospitality," "down-home manners," "southern charm" - and all things genteel.

Arriving in Nashville 10-plus years ago from Bakersfield, California, and judging on my own, I am not entirely convinced. In comparison between the two cities, all manners fly out the window in Nashville when it comes to navigating by car by cart or by foot.

In Bakersfield, Calif., and in all California communities I have spent time in, the pedestrian in a crosswalk is king. Traffic going both ways slows and comes to an orderly stop, with an occasional screeching of tires, and remains stopped for as long as it takes the pedestrian or pedestrians to cross safely. Okay, certain crosswalks are dangerous enough to have their own Website, like the one that warns motorists of local police speed traps. But, in Bakersfield and throughout California, crosswalks have a history. Pedestrians really do have the right of way, and it is a clear and mostly observed law. The idea is purely alien in Nashville.

Crosswalks are identified by painted lanes in California. Their existence is a way of life, as familiar as a line of palm trees. You grow up with the words �PED XING� - painted on the asphalt between the crosswalk lines. The habit is so embedded that you see people in the middle of a sidewalk so reluctant to cross over that they walk to the end for safe passage at the crosswalk.

Minorities, especially, know the rules in California. �You don�t get no money if you get hit outside the lines,� a young black man once told me.

Driving in traffic? Honey, hush. In Bakersfield, the freeway traffic during prime driving times may be humming along bumper to bumper at 70 miles per hour. This creates a �herd effect.� You go with the herd whether you like it or not. Slow down and you may be crumpled; speed up and you may exchange more than paint. You are part of a group, with no room for individualism. As bad as it sounds, it works amazingly well.

In Nashville, there are not as many vehicles during prime driving hours as are moving in Bakersfield, allowing the problem of varied drivers to display their own personalities. Vehicles yo-yo dangerously and create chaotic ebbs and flows in traffic speeds and patterns. Bakersfield traffic moves fast and linear; Nashville traffic does the herky-jerky.

In Bakersfield, if, say, six cars are stopped at a red light and all will continue in a straight line once the light turns green, a pattern will quickly emerge: Once the light turns green, all six cars will soon be going the same speed and with the same distance in between. That is partly due to the habits picked up with the �herd effect,� and more to do to in being considerate of drivers behind them. In Nashville, that sixth car will be lucky to even see a green light, since the drivers of the cars in front show no consideration for the trailing drivers. Some cars in the line will nearly touch and huge gaps will space out the others.

Going shopping is another exercise in bad manners in Nashville. In Bakersfield, large businesses have signs on front doors. You enter on the right and you exit on the right. Inside, you have right aisle traffic and left aisle traffic. It is orderly and pleasantly efficient.

In Nashville, no such signs or traditions exist. If you try to take a cart in the right door, someone is coming out that door, and the other door, too. The aisles are even worse than the entrances and exits when it comes to a balance of order.

Nashvillians, in my estimation, could learn much from those rude and laid-back Californians.

TODAY'S FOLKSY EXPRESSION OVERHEARD: "Cuter than a new speckled pup in a red wagon."
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