“Please. Thank you. Yes ma’am. No sir.”

These are words I’ve uttered millions of times a day for years, so much so that they have become instinctual and second nature. Yet I hardly hear them at all now. I hold the door for ladies, and I fully expect to pay for my date’s evening. Yes, I am also fully aware and respectful of a woman’s ability to do these things on her own, but she won’t have to when I am around. This is simply how I was raised. It is called being a gentleman. When did this become so strange?

I have spent my whole life in the warm, loving embrace of the American South. Though each state I have called home has had its own idiosyncrasies, regardless the side of the Mississippi on which they lay, prevailing themes have always held true: we love sweet tea, we worship air conditioning, we love football a little too much, and we foster a wary view of our neighbors to the north. No, not the Canadian; the “Yankee.”

From the time I was old enough to shell a crawfish, I had been hearing about the peculiar nature of northerners. The majority of my opinions had been formed by the stereotypical Hollywood New Yorker. In my mind’s eye, I pictured most men to be like Dan Aykroyd’s character in Trading Places; concerned only with themselves, fast-talking, and cut-throat. Most women I thought to be some sort of amalgamation of the characters from Sex and The City. These types of personalities are basically the antithesis of the traditional Southern Belle and Gentleman. To make matters even worse, my dad had lived in New York City for awhile back in the 80’s, and he assured me that most Yankees had poor opinions of Southerners as well; that we are all dumb rednecks who are too slow to make it in the real world.

So it was with this lifetime’s worth of naïve understandings that I set out to Cornell University this fall, having only once travelled north of the Mason-Dixon Line before. I will say I was more curious than nervous to finally be amongst these people of which I had heard so much about, yet knew so very little. One of the first things I discovered at Cornell is that folks here seem to live in their own private bubbles. If you make eye contact and smile or, God forbid, say “good morning,” you are more likely to be rewarded with an odd look than reciprocation. Furthermore, it appears that common manners have fled for warmer climates as well.

Though these were the first things I noticed, they were certainly not the last. For instance, I am surprised by how on a college campus very few people smoke. Granted, when cigarettes are approaching $10 for a pack, I’m sure it makes picking up the habit a bit more difficult. But there definitely seems to be a higher proportion of smokers in the South than up here (I guess this explains why the Marlboro Man isn’t wearing a Mets cap). Another, more obvious, difference is the topography and weather. In short, they actually exist here. I have also rapidly fallen in love with the commitment to maintaining historical structures, rather than just razing them and building anew. The ability to actually walk everywhere is taking some adjustment, but in time I will learn to not miss traffic and horrible morning radio shows.

I know that I still have a lot to learn about life up here. I know that I have yet to see a real winter, and that I will need to bring my passion for football to Schoellkopf, and that until they develop a Southerner character for “Tapestry” I may have to keep explaining myself to people. However, in my heart, I will always remain a Southern Gentleman, and I’ll see y’all at the tailgate party for Homecoming.

Mike Navarro is a junior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He can be reached at mln62@cornell.edu.