Dinner @ the President's House (funny story at the end, I promise!)

As new faculty, the wife gets invited to a bunch of "stuff". For example, we went out for dinner last Friday night with a couple of her colleagues, she gets free tickets to the university theatre productions, and she gets invited to the new faculty reception, hosted by the president of the university and his wife. So, as we were invited and never wanting to miss a party (or a free meal and booze), we put on our best and headed over.

The president's house is very nice (Apologies for the poor picture. It was the best I could find. It doesn't really give you a proper feel for the scale of it, nor the inside, which is very nicely decorated.), and is located in the heart of the campus. It has very nice gardens, and an air conditioned "Terrace - reception" area, comprised of a essentially a ballroom and an art gallery like space, half of which was "patio-ed". (God, what a horrible description. Anyway...)

We mingled with a few folks, eventually "settling" with new professors in the communications, history, and psychology departments. The conversation was good, considering all of has had just met and were feeling each other out, essentially. Dinner was a very nice, catered spread comprised of roasted chicken, pork, fried green tomatoes, and grilled asparagus, squash, etc. Dessert was banana pudding and peach cobbler with ice cream. Two words for both of those:

1. Yum -
2. EEE

During dinner, the president came to the table to sit and chat for a few minutes. He sat next to me, and we (as a table) talked bbq (he's partial to the mustard based sauces and the bbq you can find at Price's, although he does like the vinegar based if the meat is really high quality. He also doesn't like Dreamland bbq, which isn't surprising considering its a chain. He said students dig Mike & Ed's, while the locals like Byron's), and the lack of recognition sports other than football, golf and Nascar get in the Birmingham newspaper, (especially on game-days in the fall). A very nice, gracious man, who the wife described as her idea of what a Southern politician would be when we eventually come across one.

The story of the night had to be, though, when I was getting the peach cobbler from the dessert table. As I handed my plate over (already full of banana pudding (she gave me too much!)), I said something to the effect of, "Try to get some on, will ya?" The older, white woman looks at me and asks, "Where you from?"

"Connecticut"

"I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!," she screamed.

"Uh, ok."

"Are you, by chance, I-talian?", she asked.

"Wow. You're good. I am."

"I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!," she screamed again.

I asked, "I'm impressed. How could you tell?"

She replied, "Well, my sister-in-law married a man from up there, and he's I-talian, and you all look the same! You don't know him, do you? Last name is (unintelligible due to the Southern accent).... No?... You don't? Oh well...."

It was the first time I felt Asian or black.

"They all look the same!"