Lickity Split Down the Main Street of Town

Recently, I declared my disdain for some New Yorkers, and I was subjected to an earful of comments, which were surprisingly positive! This means either my fan base is mostly southern, or New Yorkers can’t read.

Well, this all got me to thinking … a dangerous thing at times. Have you ever noticed how there are some people who think anything that comes from New York City is automatically the best? My mother was guilty of this especially when it came to food. “Try these bagels, they’re from New York.” “Aren’t these knishes to die for? They’re from New York.” “It couldn’t have been the lox that gave me diarrhea; it was from New York.”

Frankly, I could never tell the difference between a New York bagel and a Newport News bagel. They both tasted like shit to me. I am probably the only Jew who doesn’t like bagels. I like bialys or Bialystoks, as some people call them. I once wrote an article for a magazine about Internet shopping (right after Al Gore invented the Internet) about bialys, their history and the fact that you could order them online from a company in … you guessed it, New York. Ok, New Yorkers, the best bialys come from New York; even I will admit that (of course, you can’t find them outside New York).

The one thing about New Yorkers that I find interesting is that they never vacation anywhere else. Sure, they go to the Hamptons, but aren’t those in New York? Do you have friends who live in New York City? I do. How many times have you invited them to come visit you? Do they? No. However, they always insist you visit them.

“Come on up for the weekend, you can stay at my place.” Oh sure, I can’t wait to spend a weekend with you in your $4,500-a-month, ten-by-twelve, studio apartment in Hell’s Kitchen with a bed on a six-foot high platform that serves as your closet and dining room.

You can always tell the amateur pornographers who are from New York. In the background are a bed, a stove, a mini-refrigerator, a garment rack, a sink, and a cat who keeps walking in front of the camera. The place is usually a mess, too.

Come visit us in the South, and you can have your own bedroom, and we will serve you breakfast on the veranda. Our cats live outside along with our hound dogs, chickens, and cows.

Another reason I don’t want to visit New York is that just about every crime show on television seems to take place there. Law & Order SVU, Law & Order Criminal Intent, Law & Order Who Stole My Bagel, Castle, CSI New York, and True Blue Jew, just to name a few. And, the crimes are so heinous. You don’t just get murdered; they chop off your body parts and leave them all over the city. Someone doesn’t just steal your purse; he takes your whole arm with it.

Even my mother, New York fan extraordinaire, would say, “Don’t wear good jewelry in Central Park; they’ll cut your hand off to get a bracelet.” Maybe this is why she only wore gaudy costume jewelry. I always said she could walk through Central Park at 3:00 am, and no one would bother her.

When was the last time you saw CSI Bent Fork or Law & Order Bootleggers and Brothels?

I’ll tell you why, and the New Yorkers will love this. In the South, we do things a little bit more slowly, so it takes a while for us to catch our criminals. A case has to be open at least fourteen years before they will declare it a cold case. In addition, our criminals are also a bit slow.

In New York, they drive either white vans or black mid-size sedans. In the South, they drive a blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice or some other car you could pick out in a parking lot full of charcoal gray Honda Accords. That is what the snipers were driving, and it took them a month to find them.

When I lived in Newport News in the 1980s, a neighbor was murdered, and the felons took off in his turquoise 1965 Chevrolet Impala. They were finally caught two weeks later in Nevada. Why did it take so long? They took a southern route.

Just listen in on a police call.

“Hey, Marge, we need to put out an APB … oh she’s fine, just getting over a cold, but we’re getting plenty of milk out of her now … oh, you weren’t talking about her … my wife, oh the same, she switched to filter-less, and now she doesn’t cough as much … Marge, two guys just held up Tyrone's gas station … yep, they were last seen going lickity split down the main street of town … oh I don’t know … a witness says they were going about twenty maybe even twenty-five miles per hour … we got that; they were driving a yellow AMC Gremlin … uh huh with a white hockey-stick stripe … yep, I had one, too, fine car … he says it had the big bumpers, so it must be a 1974 or 75, maybe even a 1976 … nope, he said it was going too fast to get a license plate number … ok, when you come back from lunch, you put out that APB. Ok?”

If you think I’m kidding, several years ago, a couple of guys were shooting at cars in southwest Virginia, and they were driving a yellow AMC Gremlin.

It took them three weeks to catch them.

If you like things slow and bagels from Newport News, follow me, or just buy my damn book on Kindle here.