Reflections: My First Sighting Of A Yankee

Enjoy our “Reflections” post — one of many vignettes and stories featuring memories of days gone by. This installment is from Richard Burns, as seen in “The Oxford So & So.”
If you would like to contribute your own Reflections story, send it, along with photos, to hottytoddynews@gmail.com.


It was when our second-grade class returned after summer break. It was a new boy named Robert. He looked like any other second grader, but when he talked, I realized he had a speech impediment.
I was kind to him, but many teased him and called him a Yankee. I asked my mother what was a Yankee. She said it was a person who lived “up North.”
Well, I had cousins who lived in Water Valley, Mississippi, and that was 13 miles north of Coffeeville. But when I asked one of them if he knew he was a Yankee, he got upset.
Robert did not return for the third grade. I think he was glad.


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