For my mother-in-law

Mary Lester was originally going to be my on-post welcoming party, but due to my late arrival, I was handed off to her husband Richard. Richard was kind enough to pick me up in Fairbanks, run me around for errands, drive me down here, give me the windshield tour, and even have me over to his home for football, fish and beer. He's been great. As soon as we met, there was something familiar about Richard and it hit me over the weekend why he seems familiar. Richard reminds me a great deal of my friend, Jason Gerwen. I thought it might be the way they carry themselves but really the only thing they share in common physically is they are both lean, lean. It hit me. Their speech patterns and turn of phrase. Emphasis on words in sentences and certain syllables. Definitely something in common. I thought it rather strange being Jason grew up in the Chitown area and Rich grew up right here in Delta Junction.
I was thinking about it Sunday and I may be on to something of a hypotheses. Jason has lived just south of Seattle for a little over a decade and Rich lived in Seattle for awhile before moving back up here. I never noticed a Seattle speech pattern when I lived in Washington, but maybe it does exist. Now of course this isn't speech science by any means just a simple observation worthy of further research.(Hint, hint, mother-in-law.) To bring everyone up to speed, Carol, my mom-in-law, is working on a Grad degree in linguistics and while Hollie finds her shop talk about as interesting as watching cheese mold, I think it's pretty cool stuff. I've always mimicked accents, especially those of fuzzy little foreigners. Hollie is especially fond of the voice I do of her when she's whiny, something of a mix of Edith Bunker and Jersey Shore.
Anyway, I've come to the conclusion, either Jaybird and Rich have both picked up a little something in the Pac Norwest or they are just two peas in a pod linguistically. Nature vs Nurture is always interesting.