Moving from Nor Cal to AL, any big surprises?

[Southlander]

Originally Posted by mccarley

Folks in Alabama pay taxes too so you will be employed.

Although you may have to drive to Birmingham for a job. Since UA churns out budding accountants every semester, the job pickings are slim in Tuscaloosa.

[Alatex]

I know someone who made the reverse move (Tuscaloosa to San Jose area).

Yeah, there aren't as many good-paying professional jobs in Tuscaloosa.
The local economy is quite stable, though (very low unemployment).

As far as finding things to do, you have to look at it as a "home base" from which to enjoy some weekend trips, rather than as a place to find everything locally, but your variety of options within a 3-4 hour drive is outstanding : Atlanta, New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga, MS casinos (top 3 state for gambling), and by far my favorite of all, the Gulf beaches (Gulf Shores,AL-Panama City, FL, very different from Pacific beaches, in that you won't find any big waves for surfing, but the water is comfortably warm most of the year, and the sand is soft and white).

[harry chickpea]

"Yes, don't confuse "country" with "redneck," they're not the same. Not all country people are rednecks and not all redneck are from the country. The one defining feature of Country folks is that they have pride in themselves, redecks do not. Another name for true rednecks is "white trash." Remember in GWTW, Mammy fussing at Scarlet about consorting with white trash?"

Trivia I recently learned follows:

"... the epithet redneck has chiefly denigrated rural, poor white southerners, especially those who hold conservative, reactionary or racist points of view (Huber 1995:146-48). During the 1920s and 1930s, however, another one of its definitions in the northern and central Appalachian coalfields was "a Communist." And during the first four decades of the twentieth century, redneck also referred more broadly to a miner who was a member of a labor union, particularly to one who was on strike."

"...the epithet redneck, in a coal-mining context, usually referred to the red bandanas that striking miners sometimes wore knotted about their necks and not to sunburned necks, the conspicuous physical feature for which poor white southerners, who worked long days in the fields, were so infamously named."

I'm kinda curious about that "sunburned" neck citation. With the exception of people from northern climes who lack any protective pigmentation, a sunburned red neck is less common than a dark "farmer tanned" neck. Guess I'm missing something. Anyway, the source of the quotes:

Red Necks and Red Bandanas: Appalachian Coal Miners and the Coloring of Union Identity, 1912-1936 | Western Folklore | Find Articles at BNET.com

Hillbillies has another interesting possible source:

"The term "Hill-Billies" is first encountered in documents from 17th century Ireland. Roman Catholic King James II landed at Kinsale in Ireland in 1689 and began to raise a Catholic army in an attempt to regain the British throne. Protestant King William III, Prince of Orange, led an English counterforce into Ireland and defeated James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. A significant portion of William III's army was composed of Protestants of Scottish descent (Planters) who had settled in Ulster in northern Ireland. The southern Irish Catholic supporters of James II referred to these northern Protestant supporters of King William as "Hill-Billies"[citation needed] and "Billy Boys" — Billy being an abbreviation of William."

Hillbilly - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So, if you are anti-union, redneck is an insult, and if you are Catholic, hillbilly is an insult.