“You don’t sound like a Texan,” say most people when I tell them that I’m from Texas. Born and raised in Texas, I once possessed that unmistakable accent so fascinating to non-Texans. (There are home videos to prove it.) Maybe it was being a student of languages that killed the accent. Maybe it was my spirit of adventure. Having spent most of my time in the South, my first real culture shock came when I went to college in California. I might as well have been on a different continent. With the help of my Californian friends, I learned to adapt. (“Don’t say that!” and “Sh! Not so loud! Do you want to get killed?”) How was I to know?
Since then, I have lived on both the West Coast and the East Coast, have traveled to Europe several times, and have also lived in Scotland and London. That thick Texan accent may have mostly disappeared, but the spirit and the perspective are still there.
