Adios Pennsyltucky Peaches

Uncle Bubba is glad to see Pennsyltucky in his rearview mirror for no other reason that he is headed for home. He's a southern man, which he admits skews his perspective, yet sees folks at face value. Most folks at that level are nice and have far more in common than the media would have us believe. But in this commonwealth that has given us such small minded thinkers as Rick Santorum and Gerald Sandusky, Bubbie gave me one word for the Keystoners, wacky. They'd be surprised, no doubt, to discover that they aren't exactly the friendliest folks one might come across. They have a spooky way of looking right through a person and not acknowledging that you're there.  (Bubbie now better understands that lights out look in Santorum's eyes.) They don't offer a mere hello, let alone a handshake or a glass of water to a thirsty worker. Yet when they are engaged they're as pleasant as most. One day Bubbie was jawing with some locals and mentioned that he reckoned that he saw a peach tree orchard in his travels.
"Peach trees!" they heckled, "Apple trees for sure, but not peach trees!"
Uncle Bubba felt a little embarrassed and suddenly felt like a southerner, an outsider as he waited for their snickerin' to die down.

A few weeks later he was cruising along no more than 20 miles from where he was lightly chastised for thinking that there were peach trees in Pennsylvania when low and behold, there was the doggone peach orchard!

Yessir, right there under the noses of the narrow minded locals were some pretty pink peach blossoms just as sweet as any Georgia bloom. Uncle Bubba knew that he wouldn't cross paths with the local yokels again, but it did shed some light on the phenomenon that we all suffer from; shortsightedness. We live within a few miles of our homes and seldom leave except through what we see on TV. We'll quickly rant that we all know that what we see on TV is not real, yet it seems to drive all of our opinions and perspectives. In Bubbie's view, he got the last laugh but it didn't really seem all that funny. He pitied the rubes that didn't know what lied outside of their own community, yet was oh so happy to be rolling home. Not only that but he was thankful for his innate propensity of open-mindedness and that he got to see the beauty of a Pennsylvania peach orchard.