I've been playing with this title in my head for years. Whenever someone would ask how I didn't know how to do something or whenever I was a bit... short in the etiquette department, my answer has always been "Raised by wolves." Of course, I wasn't. Of course, my mother would be absolutely horrified to think her legacy is a blog entitled "Raised by Wolves," or in the case of this one, "Raised by WV Wolves." But it is what has been rattling around in my head for years, and so it goes.
The first time I uttered "Raised by wolves," was at a cocktail party when I first experienced boiled shrimp. I was 20 years old, and we had been living in Atlanta since I was 7. "Seafood" to me was some sort of exotic food that only citified people ate. Now please note what I just said. I had been living in Atlanta for 13 years at this point... when was I going to consider myself citified? :-D But I digress. So, standing at the buffet at a friend's cocktail party, watching people swoop in for the shrimp. I was a bit disgusted -- I mean, this shrimp had shells on AND legs -- ugh! I'd never seen shrimp... naked. They were always butterflied, battered, and fried. Who knew they looked so... ugly and unappetizing?
But people were ripping off legs and shells, sluicing them through cocktail sauce, so I thought, well... time to be citified. So I gingerly took one, and watching everyone else, started tearing off the legs. I thought my stomach was just going to jump on out of my mouth and run away from the mayhem. I wanted to throw the thing down and run for the bathroom, first to throw up and second to wash my hands! But I managed to get through it, swooshed it through some sauce, and popped it into my mouth to discover... ambrosia. Food from the gods. When my friend saw the look on my face, she said, "Good, huh?" I couldn't speak because I was too busy tearing legs, shucking shells, swooshing, and chewing. When I finally could speak, I squeaked out "I've never had this before! It is soooo good!" She looked shocked. "What do you mean? You've never had boiled shrimp before?" I shrugged while continuing to tear/shuck/swoosh and said "Raised by Wolves."
Most people will not understand what it is like to be raised by West by gawd Virginians, aka Hillbillies, while living in Atlanta. My father was the first in his family to get a high school diploma, and was, for a long time, the only one with a college degree. My mother was so ashamed that she didn't finish high school as a teenager that when she did graduate from night school when I was 8, she didn't want any of our suburban neighbors and friends to know. We moved to Atlanta in 1964, right in the middle of the Civil Rights movement. Our family was horrified -- having rarely, if ever, seen a black person, their only exposure was from the 60's news hour on TV, of riots, police, fire hoses, snarling police dogs, and defiant black people. Of course, we moved to the "City Too Busy To Hate," and rarely saw that type of action. In the suburbs, where it was still lily white for the most part, we never saw any of it. I didn't have a black person in my grade school classes until 7th grade. Phyllis... I wonder where you are now?
This wasn't my parents first foray into suburbia, though. Since my Dad went into the Navy at age 19, and after they got married, my Mom stayed at whatever port was his home station, they spent their time in Philadelphia as newlyweds. My older brother was born in Philadelphia. By the time I came along, Dad was out of the Navy, and was a senior at Marshall University in Huntington pursuing a Civil Engineer degree. We lived in a travel trailer and went from site to site while he helped build dams for the Corps of Engineers. He actually worked on Beech Fork and East Lynn Dams in SW West Virginia. To transfer to Atlanta was a huge deal though. Six hundred miles away from family is a long way for a hillbilly. In the hillbilly culture, family is EVERYTHING. Most of the time, you live in a multi-generational home with your grandparents, parents, siblings, and maybe some aunts, uncles, and cousins thrown in. If not in the same house, then very close by.
So for us to strike out for Atlanta was a huge deal. Dad traded in his '57 Chevy sedan and bought a brand new 64 model station wagon. Loaded down with 3 kids (11 yo brother, soon to be 7 yo sister, a toddler, and an assortment of stuff that kids accumulate, things my mother didn't trust the movers not to steal, along with food for the trip and all the luggage. We looked like the Beverly Hillbilllies -- we were just missing the rocking chair on top. We followed the moving truck all the way to GA, but back then it was 14 hours (I-75 wasn't finished), and somewhere along the way, we got separated and they got lost.
So we showed up at our new, empty house in suburban Atlanta in the middle of the night without the moving truck. 2 tired adults and 3 cranky kids. Mom made us pallets of clothes and blankets in the living room (the only room in the house with carpet, the rest was hardwood floors), and we all gratefully, although uncomfortably, went to sleep. Now remember, this is Georgia in August. It is hot as h#ll and muggy here at night in August. I kept waking up to Mom opening windows and turning on the attic fan, whimpering that I was hot, and having her kneel down beside me and brushing my hair with her fingers, allowing the sweat to air out, and cooling me. I remember waking up the next morning covered in a nice film of sweat, my hair stuck to my head. We had no clothes to change into, so we all ran around in our PJs with bed head hair (Mom packed the brushes and a comb didn't help my sweaty mat of hair). We ate a breakfast of a banana and bologna and cheese with crackers, and excitedly ran outside in our PJs to "see what we could see." By now, the moving truck had finally found us, and a moving truck always attracts the kids in the neighborhood.
We ran to the end of the driveway and stopped. In the road stood several kids, on bikes, trikes, and scooters. Some were wearing skates. All were staring at us. I, being the most vocal of the three, said "Hi! We're from West Virginia! This is Allan, Odell and I'm Renee!" They kept staring and silent. "What's your name?" I asked a girl who looked about my age. "Lynn," she said. "Y'all sound funny." We laughed, because to us, they all sounded like they were talking with syrup in their mouths, they talked so slow. But the ice was broken. As kids all over do, we joined in to play. We were now a part of the San Juan pack of kids who rode their bikes, trikes, big wheels, and skates all over the long, hilly street up until 9pm at night.
Dad still cannot stand the sound of big wheels on concrete. I guess living in the country up until we moved kind of made the sounds of suburbia a bit harsh on their ears, but for us kids, who on the farm in SE Ohio didn't have friends close by, it was a cacophony of promise to our ears. There was someone to play with! The fact that we were playing in our PJs caused a few doors to open and Moms to peer suspiciously out at us. The news traveled fast -- the new neighbors were from WV! HILLBILLIES! Hillbillies who let their kids run around outside in their... GASP! night clothes! Obviously, they were raised by wolves... and so it began.
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