Dusty Rhoades Columns 1999

Welcome to the US Open!

On behalf of all of us here in Moore County, I'd like to welcome all of our visitors to the U.S. Open. Unfortunately, I can't be here to greet each of you personally. Like many of the natives here, I have fled the area. This is a recording. At the tone, please deposit several thousand dollars in the local economy. DING! Thank you.

Don't take it personally. I'm sure you're all lovely people. It's just that there are so darn many of you. Besides, we here in the Sandhills are a happy, simple folk. We're frightened by your strange accents and noisy horseless carriages. (Note to the remaining natives: hey, it's what they expect. Humor them.)

By the way, if anyone is tempted to use my absence to burgle my home, please be advised that I have rented the place to a Vietnam veteran who has frequent flashbacks whenever he sees a stranger in the yard. He also raises Rottweilers. Rabid ones.

With all that out of the way, I would like to offer a few suggestions for our out-of-town visitors:

When you encounter a local person, please say something nice about the traffic circle. We've worked really hard to get it just right.
If you are not from the South, please do not attempt to use the word "y'all." If you use it wrong, you just look silly, and there's not enough time to teach you to do it properly.
Another linguistic note: "grits" is a dish, and the word is plural, i.e. "These grits are wonderful!" If you don't know what grits are made of, better not ask. Just eat up.
Be careful in your use of the word "Pinehurst." Remember that the resort is called "Pinehurst," and the town is called "the Village of Pinehurst." For some reason, this really means a lot to the folks at Resorts of Pinehurst, and this columnist has learned that squads of undercover attorneys will be circulating through the crowd, dispensing stern letters to those who misuse the name.
Speaking of Pinehurst, if you get lost in those twisty, narrow streets with the little bitty brown street signs, you're not alone. We do, too. We're not sure why the streets are like that. There's a rumor that the streets were laid out this way during the Civil War to frustrate a Yankee invasion. Obviously, it didn't work.
On that note, a word to our northern guests, as well as those from Chicago: we know the pizza is better where you come from. It is not necessary to keep telling us about it.
Also, we just talk slowly; we listen at the same speed you do. It is not necessary to enunciate every word as if you were talking to a three-year-old. Unless of course, you ARE talking to a three-year old.
Yes, Michael Jordan owns a place here. No, all of us haven't met him.
To all you folks from Massachusetts: we don't know how Jesse Helms keeps getting elected either.
If you're driving in downtown Southern Pines and observe someone coming towards you swerve suddenly into your lane, do not panic. They're probably just veering over to buy a copy of this newspaper from one of the corner vendors. Pick up a copy for yourself.
If you're tempted to ask if it always gets this hot around here, the answer is no. It doesn't really get hot around here until August. At that time, contrary to popular belief, it is not possible to fry an egg on the street, although I did once whip up an order of hashbrowns on an off-ramp.

Anyway, have a good time, and drive safely. That is, when you can drive at all. My advice is, take the shuttles.

Dusty Rhoades is a Southern Pines lawyer, who's not required to play golf, since he's from here.

READER D.A. deMARCO WRITES IN:

If I were a visitor reading "Tips for Visitors," the column printed on the front page of Monday's edition of The Pilot, I would be certain that I had arrived in Hicksville, USA. If The Pilot feels some obligation to print Dusty Rhoades' sophomoric drivel, how about burying it somewhere inside where the casual reader might miss it. [Or better yet, how about leading the column with a picture so hideous it scares people off? Oh wait, they did that already.]

It certainly is a shame to give visitors the impression that Rhoades is a representative member of the Pinehurst populace. He appears to take on that role by speaking "on behalf of all of us here in Moore County." [Note: I always enjoy it when people who've lived here for four years think they speak for the population.] He then flees the area and claims that many of the natives have gone as well. Is that really a fact? I don't think so. A lot of us simple folk are still happy to be here greeting the visitors with the "strange accents and horseless carriages." (Is Rhoades living in the past or what?)

In the four years that I have lived in Pinehurst, I have yet to meet the so-called slow speaking, grits-loving natives that Mr. Rhoades seems to be acquainted with. [Probably because you never get out of Pinehurst, Yankee.]

And as for all of us who live here getting lost "in those twisty narrow streets with the little bitty brown signs," that doesn't happen to us. Only to lawyers from Southern Pines.

Do us a favor, please. Lose the copy from Dusty's next submission if the last one is as good as it gets.

But wait. His attempt at wry humor was not altogether in vain. My 14-year-old daughter found it to be slightly amusing. There just might be a spot for Mr. Rhoades on the ninth-grade gazette. [In the words of the great Willie Dixon: "The men don't know, but the little girls, they understand." ]

BACK TO COLUMN LIST

HOME