Florissant is pronounced "flarissant" in Florissant

A horse isn't a horse of course, unless it's a harse in Flarissant.

Okay, so we talk funny, have you been to Festus lately?  Yeah, me neither.  St. Louis must have a hundred different dialects within 100 miles, and that stretches into Southern Illinois, which brings in more German dialects.  St. Charles County residents spoke with a mild southern accent in my youth and that is now indistinguishable out there.  Too many people there now and most of them are from "Narth" County. 

I chose the name North County Hoosier for this blog, because it means different things to different people.  The term hoosier was derogatory in our house. It was just my neighborhood's way of referring to a redneck or cracker or a hillbilly.  It was used in reference to people who left their Christmas lights up for 6 months; people who didn't cut their grass; people with shitty cars, who quit school early because they got a girl pregnant in a trailer park.  People who were too loud and ignorant and violent and drunk, could have been classified at any given time as a hoosier in my Florissant neighborhood.  It was basically just our German Catholic instinct to look down our noses on anyone who was unclean, uncouth and uneducated.  The general attitude is still around here, but it's moved several miles west and occupies tens of thousands of McMansions. 

Class is important in St. Louis, and to stay in the same class and move up is also important.  The right schools, the right church, the right clubs. the right teams.  The race to suburban bliss continues, but it comes with many consequences.  Often, folks will move far away from their original stomping grounds in the hope of achieving some degree of advanced status, only to find that they've become lonely and miss their old neighborhood.  Did they move far away to impress those neighborhood friends in the first place?  Could be.

Let's get back to hoosiers.  Trying to avoid becoming a hoosier is not an easy thing to do.  The temptations are everywhere.  Hoosier bars, hoosier t-shirts, hoosier sports.  Yep, hoosier sports, like beer drinking, horseshoes, Jarts, road sign shooting, tobacco spitting, tire squealing, cat fishing, frog gigging, gas siphoning and unloading AR15's.  I've played them all and they're pretty damned hard to resist.  Except the gas siphoning.

Yep, I grew up in Florissant and currently live in St. Ann.  Trust me, there are hoosiers everywhere.  Shop at Mid-Rivers, Chesterfield, West County, South County and the Galleria.  You'll find them wearing the pajama bottoms, house slippers, dirty t-shirts and unwashed hair.  It's good to see them involved in everyday commerce while not giving a shit what you think.   Whether it's on purpose or by default, you have to respect the Idon'tgivashittedness of their general demeanor.  Which... pretty much explains the name of this blog.  That general attitude will most likely permeate all of my future postings.  Thanks for stoppin' by.