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This weekend I enjoyed a delightful and hilarious conversation with a friend about our experiences living in New York City. It was the first time for both of us living in the ‘Big Apple’ as New York City is affectionately called. We laughed about our introduction to big city life and how we quickly learned to adapt to it.

I spent my summers in Philadelphia when I was growing up and I thought I knew ‘big city life.’ The Philadelphia neighborhoods I knew had blocks and blocks of row houses with small front and back yards. There were trees growing in back yards and flowers and grass in the front yards. Downtown Philadelphia was grand with its four major department stores within two blocks of each other. Public transportation was easy to navigate. And people did not challenge my ‘southern accent.’

The only thing I knew about New York City was what people told me and what I saw on television. So, I was not prepared for the culture shock.

When I stepped out of the cab after reaching my destination, an apartment house at the corner of 104th and Columbus Avenues, I was greeted by almost treeless streets and a 16-story building. The tree lover that I had been since a young child grieved at not seeing a lot of trees. Fortunately, the building I was going to live in was a three-story building across the street from the high-rise building.

Once I got over the realization this was nothing like Philadelphia. I had one more bridge to cross into New York City’s big city life. Carefully pronouncing my words and learning the right terms for some of those words and to become ‘New York City Hip.’

I went to the store the next day to get a bag of potatoes to make my favorite comfort food, French fries. I asked for a five-pound bag of ‘ice potatoes’. The manager replied with an odd look and said, “You want what?” “I need a bag of ice potatoes,” I said. “Ice potatoes?” You mean you want frozen potatoes? he responded. “No sir” I said, just “regular ice potatoes.” He took me to the produce section and said, “Ma’am we don’t have ice potatoes.” “Yes, you do,” I said pointing at a bag of potatoes. “Did you mean you wanted ‘Irish Potatoes’?” he asked with a grin on his face. “Let me guess he said, you are from the Carolinas.” “Yeah, I am,” I answered. Down home we call them ‘Ice potatoes cause they are white like ice.’ Sweet potatoes are kinda orange, so we call them ‘ice potatoes’ because they are white like ice.” He enjoyed a good laugh and handed me the bag of potatoes.

So now I knew to ask for Irish potatoes if I ever needed to use that term again. Funny thing was when I came back to Washington and told people about my potato story, they claimed I was now talking ‘proper.’ “Yeah when folks go to New York City, they come back talking all proper like.” They teased me. I bet I know why I thought to myself. I kinda got tired of big city folks trying to understand what I was saying.

I have other funny stories about becoming ‘New York City hip’ that I’ll share later. Oh, and as for me while living in the ‘Big Apple,’ I often felt like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, when I would tell folks, there’s no place like home, meaning Washington NC!