Racial Chameleon in full force.

This weekend I went to a wedding in Richmond, Virginia. Based on all the large buildings that appeared to be banking headquarters (Wachovia and Sun Trust to name a couple) I was surprised to find that the airport and city were so sleepy. As it turned out the Folk Festival was going on so everyone was preoccupied with that.

The wedding ceremony was a pleasant outdoor affair and pretty quick. The highlight of the ceremony was when a large pine cone fell from a tree and struck a woman in the head. Then the real fun began.

My girlfriend and I needed a ride from the ceremony to the reception so we managed to get a ride with two women who looked only 50 years old, but had to have been at least 200 years old based on their accents and vocabulary. While riding to the reception a black man with dreds rode past the car on a bicycle, which prompted the following response from the driver:

“Oh my – a jig-a-boo (spelling?) with dreds went by and scared me. ha ha”

Somewhere before coon and after darkie I think is where jig-a-boo lines up on the slurs against black people list. I thought I was in a scene from Mississippi Burning or reading a passage out of Huck Finn. The driver’s side woman told her to hush or something southern like that either because:

a) she knew the driver was ignorant

b) she did not want these Yankees hearing all their local vocabulary

c) the tall guy in the backseat looks awfully jig-a-boo-ish.

The other thing these southern women did was exaggerate or over-dramatize the importance of everything, probably still trying to emulate Scarlett O’Hara: “My Gawd – theyar is a pahking space ova theyar! Don’t tell me theyar – you will have me pahkin in a hole in the ground!” I think had there been two open spaces she might have started speaking in tongues.

At the reception I realized I was in full racial chameleon undercover because when “Play that Funky Music White Boy” some 55 year old blonde, former-Jon Benet Ramsey type pointed at me and told me to play the music, I guess because I appeared to be full on white boy. That normally would not have been so weird except I was overwhelmingly the darkest person not working at the wedding. Perhaps they just thought I was a dirty Italian (hard “i”).

As the alcohol continued to flow and the band continued to play I danced with my girlfriend as well as several of the older ladies we were sitting with. I felt like Johnny in Dirty Dancing, working over all the guests at the resort.

The only other observation I noticed of these older southern women is that they insist on offering support for statements that stand on their own. One woman would say, “My husband is an accountant,” and the other would chime in with, “That’s true – he is good with numbers!” Or, “I was at the grocery store the other day,” followed by “She most certainly was!” Thanks Mabel, I never would have believed her outrageous tale of the accountant husband and the food shopping without your corroboration.

The worst part of the trip for me was definitely the hour long flight home. It was on a plane that apparently goes off course every time a wind of 5 mph or stronger hits it. I hate flying a lot. Especially in small planes. If your city does not merit a large plane then I don’t want to go. It’s true; I do not want to go.