Welch: Parisian advice for a grandkid bound for Boston

Grandchildren grow up and turn into adults. Who knew?

Lunch with Rylee, going-on-21 and bound for Boston, of all places, was somewhat sobering for me and Grandad. She’s an adult, pretty much. Rylee even has a job already — a real one.

In a supportive mood, Hugh and I gave her all the adult-to-adult advice we could scrape together, including no information on the Boston transit system or any other practical pointers. We know beans about Boston.

Yep, she might as well be going to a foreign country. In fact, I put my brain in foreign country mode and told her what I’d discovered about the best way to get along in Paris, thinking it could help her in Boston.

My advice: Be yourself. When you are a humble Texan, it’ll get you places.

In France, Americans are a dime a dozen, sure. But if you’re from Texas and play your cards right, you may often find yourself a person of interest. Just act matter of fact about your oil properties and your livestock and such.

Maybe things have changed. I’ve not been to Europe for decades. Nor to Boston. Fossil fuel connections should probably not be mentioned. Tell ‘em you’re from a part of the world where you can’t see the non-forest for the wind turbines.

Perhaps Texans are delightfully rare in Boston. If Rylee could talk like one, she might get points. But regional accents are fading now. Television has standardized speech. Rylee doesn’t sound very regional.

Here’s hoping Bostonians still talk funny. They’re famous for dropping their r’s, sort of like Mississippians but sort of not like Mississippians. But who knows? Television may have dealt the Boston dialect a fatal blow. I hope not.

RESEARCH PAUSE.

I did a search for, “do they still talk funny in Boston?”

Short answer: They do, but an influx of newcomers, like Rylee, is being blamed for doing some damage. And yes, true Bostonians ignore their r’s. Hmm. Somebody for whom English is a second language and for whom English r’s are hard to say should probably move either to Boston or Mississippi.

Indeed, “r” is one of those killer letters that separates the true speakers of any language from the pretenders. Ask moi. I pretend to speak French.

Speaking of Mississippi, as long as we have already, here’s a little anecdote:

My friend Molly from Pope, Mississippi, married Mike from Gdansk, Poland. They went to Pope for a visit. Molly asked Mike the whereabouts of something (I forget what).

He said, “Your mother said it’s on the powuch.”

It took Molly herself a minute to understand “powuch” as “porch” although she would have understood her mother perfectly and no doubt pronounces the word the Mississippi way herself. Ah pronunciation.

Back to Rylee. She’s developed an interest in history and told us every place in Boston has a story to tell. She likes to read historical fiction.

When a grandchild starts liking history, even old grandparents should become certifiably intriguing acquaintances.

Here’s hoping.

This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: Welch: Parisian advice for a grandkid bound for Boston