From northern Minnesota to Iowa to Burkburnett, Texas. From moose and the call of the loons to armadillos, rattlesnakes and horny toads. Talk about culture shock. Well, when you’re a kid and you make a move like that you have to learn a whole new language. It helps if you’re seven and new to everything.

That move gave me an appreciation for language and contrast.

Figuring out what Texans were saying was tricky.

Our new neighbor must have seen the movers carrying in the couch, because a few days later, I heard her ask my mother: “You putting antimacassars on your davenport?”

Come again?

I got some help from my mother. Were we going to place doilies on the couch, was the question. Thanks, mom. One other question, mom: What strange land have you brought us to?”

Still, there are some things you can figure out on your own. When I heard a man at the soda fountain say to another man, “them’s bodacious tatas, “I just followed his eyes to the lady at the end of the counter whose bosom was spilling out into her lemon-lime – another sweet novelty – called lemonade in Minnesota.

“Wanna open the spigot (pronounced spicket) and play on a hot day,” my new playmate advised. Sounds good, but where do I find a spigot? Oh, the faucet. And is there a day that isn’t hot?

Pop or Coke anyone?

I was recounting this period in my childhood to my husband, who moved as much as I did as a kid, and he remembers a few expressions he first heard in Pittsburgh: “Loaf with your friends or lie in.” He liked to do both.

“Rode hard an put up wet,” was something you never did to a horse. I heard that at a few events to describe some shady practices among some shadier people. At least that’s what I thought they were talking about.

I still can’t be sure. I wish I could have said; “This isn’t my first time at the rodeo.” But it was my first time at the dang rodeo.

As I heard in Scotland: “There’s nowt so queer as folk.”