Where are you from? asked the cashier at a gas station off 1-85 somewhere south of Richmond. That was a question I had not heard in years. l instantly knew that a week spent away from Northern Virginia on a construction site in Durham talking to folks who hail from Western North Carolina had corrected my manner of speaking back to that of my youth. In a sense, for the week, l was home and the comfort of the place and the people had peeled away the pretense of the adapted way of speaking that has become second nature to me after more than 30 years away from the Old North State. Surprisingly, my natural way of speaking was not the only thing from my past that I was reminded of this past week.

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