Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 22, 1995 TAG: 9508230024
SECTION: WELCOME STUDENTS PAGE: WS-20 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: WENDY L. TURNER SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"Hi. How are you?''
"Fi-i-ne, thank you. How are yo-u-u?''
"Very well."
The tall, blonde girl looked at me, smiled and spoke. "I've been dying to ask, are you from Georgia?''
Stunned, my lower jaw dropped as I replied, "No, I'm from Franklin County. It's about a hundred miles from here."
Thinking this person must have been from north of the Mason-Dixon line to ask such a question, I politely asked her where home was.
"Richmond."
"Oh."
This was typical of my first week, month, year at college. Actually, it lasted my entire tenure at RU.
I came to Radford University in the fall of 1988, a naive, innocent, passive 17-year-old girl from a rural area in Southwest Virginia.
I grew up among the hills of Turkeycock Mountain between my home in Sago and my grandparents' farms in Pittsylvania County. My childhood days were spent in tobacco fields, riding my bike down dirt roads with my dog barking excitedly by my side, avoiding snakes and poison oak while I swam in the Pigg River, and playing in the stream behind my grandmother's house with my cousins and the bullfrogs.
As I hit adolescence, I began to wander into the world of pop music, make-up and parties, like all teen-agers. After high school graduation, I packed my belongings to start my new college life. I was consumed by that worn-out cliche about being ready to take on the world.
I never expected to feel "lost" in what I considered to be my own back yard. Radford was a small town in Southwest Virginia, and I was a country girl. Besides, it was close to home, which meant things couldn't be too different.
Yeah, right.
While I watched "Little House on the Prairie" reruns, everyone else was tuned into MTV. I wore blue jeans and button-up shirts instead of the ever-popular hippie and Rastafarian looks. While other girls decorated their rooms with pictures of Bob Marley and perfectly sculpted men, I adorned my walls with pictures of Scarlett and Rhett in their Southern glory. Beside them hung an American flag. I didn't understand why my hall mates from NOVA giggled at what was such an obvious paradox to them.
They were from where?
This place called NOVA haunted me for weeks. Hundreds of my peers introduced themselves as being from this elusive area. Too embarrassed to ask where it was, I would smile and nod my head. I figured out it was accessible by car when I saw sign after sign tacked up all over campus about students who wanted to catch rides there. Imagine my embarrassment when I learned that NOVA was not one particular place but rather the northern region of my own state.
I knew I would meet people from all over the country who spoke and acted different from me. But just how different could things get on a college campus that offered a minor in Appalachian Studies?
I got my answer when I met Lori.
Lori introduced herself as being from the Philippines, but she had lived on most every continent. She spoke with an accent that was a cross between British and something else I could never pinpoint. Her features were a mystery to me because her dark hair was always in her face.
She had brought everything she owned in one huge suitcase that was filled with fertility symbols, exotic scarves and letters from her Sting look-alike boyfriend from England. She was into theater and kept late hours, returning home in the early morning to take a shower and get a few hours of sleep. She smoked clove cigarettes in the no-smoking section.
And I thought I was a rebel for sneaking my pet hamster into the dorm.
To put it politely, Lori and I were cultural confusions. I didn't understand her left-wing liberalized views and she didn't understand my conservative ones. She often remarked that she would like to visit the area I grew up in order to "understand me better."
I never would have predicted an outsider would invade my turf and call me different.
Certainly the cultural and linguistic differences didn't stop here.
But after the initial stages of surprise and mixed emotions, I came to appreciate the diversity I encountered and eventually intermingled with.
Lori and I became close friends and made many memories until she left for her next destination. I imagine her to be in the African countryside, New York City, or Japan.
Even though I have visited the illustrious NOVA, New York and Great Britain, I, however, prefer the security of a region I always expect to call home.
By the way, someone in London asked if I was from Texas.
by CNB