Nashville, Three Questions

1.  Is it true there’s an old trolley bridge by my house?

2.  Is it true there’s a gravity hill out at Edwin Warner park and how do I find it?

3.  Is John Rich’s new house going to be at the top of Love Hill and, if so, isn’t there a park there now?  

The German-American Problem

Brittney has this awesome map up over at Nashville is Talking that colors the country in by majority ethnicity by county.  If we Germans could get along with each other long enough to organize something more complicated than a barn raising, the rest of you would be in trouble, crushed under the weight of all our saurkraut.

In the comments there’s the requisite grouching about what "African-American" ancestry means, but I think if one looks at who in the U.S. is claiming "American" ancestry and where they live, looking at who in the U.S. is claiming African and American ancestry is pretty spot on and hilarious.

Bless Brittney’s heart, too, I think she was trying to kindly make that point with a couple of other posts she highlighted yesterday–one on how being African-American is indeed different from being African and the other on how there are people of African descent in Mexico as well–but even though the posts were all very close together, since she did not take folks by the hand and point them from point A to B to C, I guess they did not get it.

Anyway, I thought, since we’re clearly taking over the United States anyway, I would help you all ease into German American culture.  We’ll start small.  Have a tasty dessert with lunch.  Hell, maybe have it for lunch.  Practice frowning, but with a twinkle in your eye, that says, "I am both pissed off and amused."  Refrain from touching anyone unnecessarily.  Grunt.

Once you get those down, we’ll work on the more complicated question of "Should you convert to Lutheranism?"  It’s not required, but it makes things easier.  Plus, it raises your chances of getting to sleep with Swedes.  On the other hand, you then can’t look down your nose at beer-drinkers.  It’s a tough decision.