I’m in Nashville for the next two days for Doruk’s graduation. It’s been a quick three years of law school, and now he’s getting ready for a big adventure in Brooklyn as a real estate lawyer. I’m incredibly proud of him. I’ll do a larger Nashville post Friday night\/Saturday morning (with appropriate food shots of course).<\/p>\n
But I realized tonight just how polarizing my love\/hate relationship is with the South.<\/p>\n
I love the food. It’s not good for your health, but it’s great for your soul. It’s made with love, and it may shorten your life, but it fills it with joy.<\/p>\n
I love the kindness. People treat each other well. Please and thank you are standard. You say sir and ma’m where it’s appropriate.<\/p>\n
I hate the racism. It’s rampant, and it’s everywhere. Anyone who says otherwise is lying.<\/p>\n
I hate the narrow mindedness. Folks are proud to be ignorant; proud to be backwards; and proud of their inability to change.<\/p>\n
I love the music. I love country music. The instruments are played exceptionally. The lyrics are stories about real life.<\/p>\n
I hate the religious fervor. It’s the most false form of Christianity possible.<\/p>\n
But when the siren sings her song I come back. I chase my sweet tea. I eat my BBQ brisket and chicken. Then look across the railroad tracks and see all the things that are broken. And it’s as if the siren has crashed me against the rocks leaving me to drown at sea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m in Nashville for the next two days for Doruk’s graduation. It’s been a quick three years of law school, and now he’s getting ready for a big adventure in Brooklyn as a real estate lawyer. I’m incredibly proud of him. I’ll do a larger Nashville post Friday night\/Saturday morning (with appropriate food shots of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQyAq-ps","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1580,"url":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2015\/05\/09\/my-baby-brother-is-a-lawyer\/","url_meta":{"origin":1578,"position":0},"title":"My baby brother is a lawyer","date":"May 9, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"It was a good two days with the family in Nashville celebrating Doruk graduating from Vanderbilt. I landed bright and early on Thursday morning, and we headed straight to see Walter Isaacson speak. He did really well. If you know he's quoting the amazing lines of the geniuses he studied,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Updates"","img":{"alt_text":"Meat and 3 at Arnold's in Nashville","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/IMG_3516.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":338,"url":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2010\/05\/31\/russian-river-weekend\/","url_meta":{"origin":1578,"position":1},"title":"Russian River weekend","date":"May 31, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Micky and I trekked north to the Russian River region which is the northern tip of the North Bay. At least, I wouldn't call too much past Guernesville the Bay Area. More than an hour out, and you're really pushing it. Anyway, just as we were getting to our hotel,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Melih gets married"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":381,"url":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2010\/08\/11\/it-isnt-supposed-to-make-sense\/","url_meta":{"origin":1578,"position":2},"title":"It isn't supposed to make sense","date":"August 11, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Forever is a really long time. To really make forever with anyone work, there is a lot of give and take. Parents, siblings, lovers, children, friends... It's a lot of people with whom you are both consciously and subconsciously compromising. There are incredibly silly things that are just resolved in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ramadan"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1095,"url":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2014\/04\/08\/getting-sick-falling-behind\/","url_meta":{"origin":1578,"position":3},"title":"Getting sick. Falling behind","date":"April 8, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"This blog post is 10 days late. It all started on this date when I got sick, fell behind, and I've been playing catch up ever since. Some of these catch up blog posts are relevant to the day. Others are just random musings. I'm falling sick today. I can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":157,"url":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2009\/08\/27\/to-be-proud\/","url_meta":{"origin":1578,"position":4},"title":"To Be Proud","date":"August 27, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"In a general regard, I think that having pride in what one does is one of the more difficult achievements on my list. I think this mainly comes from the fact that many people work simply to support a lifestyle or to cater to a social norm of contributing or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1748,"url":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2016\/11\/09\/dear-ms-mary\/","url_meta":{"origin":1578,"position":5},"title":"Dear Ms. Mary...","date":"November 9, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Dear Ms. Mary, I want to reintroduce myself. My name is Melih Onvural, and we met almost 25 years ago in a small town called Cary, NC. I even remember how you introduced yourself - \"My name is Mary. My husband's name is Terry. And we live in Cary\". I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"Raif Onvural at ODTU Graduation 1983","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/onvural.net\/photos\/var\/albums\/family\/random\/ODTU-photo4.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1578"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1578\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}