Ebbie says:

>The New York City denizen and the family in the Florida panhandle and the shrimper in the >Lousiana bayou and the Kansas farmer and the Montana rancher and the New Mexico artisan and the >California redwood treehugger and the Oregon bull rider and the Alaska dog musher have scarcely >even a language in common.

And it seems compelling, cept for one thing--the Florida family, the New Mexican Artisan, and the California Tree hugger started out as New York City denizens.

The Louisiana Shrimper could be Italian, with extended family in Philly and San Francisco, or maybe a Vietnamese shrimper who worked for fifteen years in Philly to get enough for a rig.   

The Montana Rancher and the Oregon Bull rider are both truckers who work out of Bakersfield, and the Alaska dog musher spends about half the year in San Francisco.

The Kansas farmer is the only one who stays put, and that's just because he can drive as far as he wants in any direction and it all looks the same, anyway--