Learning to dislike St. Augustine, how to pronounce “pecan” part of being Pensacolian

There are things you learn about Pensacola pretty quickly when you move here, and some are pretty evident even after a short time in the historic, sun-smacked city and its surrounding towns and charming suburbs.

You know, things like never speed in Gulf Breeze. It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity. Avoid Interstate 10 westbound between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. In fact, if you’re like me and listen to local radio, you’ve almost memorized WCOA’s regular traffic updates courtesy of Stacey Noles, which normally start, these days, something like this: “Heavy traffic on I-10 westbound between Highway 29 and Pine Forest Road, and that’s due to construction”… But in that soothing drawl of his, it’s as if he feels for us who are stuck in it the motorized muck. That implied compassion almost makes it bearable. Almost. Seriously, avoid the area during that time if you can. It’s ugly. Speaking of WCOA, oldtimers also know that Ted Cassidy, who played lovable “Lurch” on the “Addams Family” series of the 1960s, was a radio disc jockey at the station in the late 1950s. Just common Pensacola knowledge if you’re old enough and have lived here long enough.

It’s that information that old-school Pensacolians have. That deeply entrenched knowledge that comes from having seen the Blue Angels fly over your head hundreds, maybe thousands of times if you’ve lived here long enough. The Pensacola insight that comes from collecting enough parade beads through the decades to build a bridge and bringing home so many parade Moon Pies you could feed a city? (We’re not the skinniest city. It’s not that mullet is a high-fat unhealthy fish. But fried the way we like it? That’s probably a contributor. Plus, we love our sides and pies.)

Gross, mullet? Isn’t it that the yucky trash fish, the one that just last year the website thekitchenknowhow.com., wrote “despite their abundance, mullet have a reputation as a lowly ‘trash fish ‘not fit for the dinner plate.” You know, they’re mud-sucking bottom feeders, and they’re ugly to boot.

Yes, yes, and yes. But you add their friends, flour and cornmeal and a little cayenne and other ingredients, and it becomes a mouth-watering mud-sucking, bottom feeding thing of beauty. Wash it down with iced tea − if you want it without sugar, weirdo, ask beforehand or you’re probably going to get it the way it was intended, sweeter than your great-granny Myrtle. Oh, you’re learn that we’ve made throwing mullet a kind of beer-soaked sport in this redneck of the woods.

Live here long enough, and you’ll become a true Pensacolian too. You’ll hear “ya’ll” and “howdy” and they’ll get stuck in your vocabulary like “stickers” − sand spurs or something else for folks not from these parts − and learn to be offended when someone tells you “Bless your heart.” (I asked just retired Irish priest Monsignor Luke Hunt if he ever says “ya’ll” or “howdy” after decades pastoring the flock at the St. Ann Catholic Church parish in Gulf Breeze. He smiled and his eyes did that Irish twinkle thing, and he said he was well familiar with both, but didn’t cop to using them himself. But you could tell he appreciated the syrupy sound of both. Though he has bestowed thousands of priestly blessings to folks, hopefully only a few were the arrow-tipped “bless your heart.'”)

You’ll learn that the reason Fairfield Drive is called Fairfield Drive, despite no fair anywhere near, is because the Pensacola Interstate Fair once was located there. And, of course, when the fair first moved to Fairfield, it wasn’t even Fairfield yet, it was Pottery Plant Road. We all know that.

You’ll learn that you don’t have to wait for a Blue Angels official show to see the Pensacola-based pilots and their sky-piercing planes do their amazing thing. Just drive somewhere south, Navy Point is perfect, but anywhere in Warrington and Myrtle Grove and even into other parts a little north, you can see the team racing across the sky.

You’ll learn the Sugar Bowl isn’t just a football party on Bourbon Street. It’s the old stretch of sand dunes and surrounding a large sand valley where your mom and dad probably had their first beer during a high school party in the 1960s or 1970s. Maybe their fifth and sixth beers too. It was out near where Portofino is now.

Pensapedia, a great place to go after pnj.com for more Pensacola information, notes “For decades it was used as an all-purpose getaway for underage revelers, sunbathers, picnickers, campers, and for many high school graduates a rite of passage.” Maybe you were born nine months after one of those late-night, moonlit rites of passage? Just saying.

Stay here long enough, and we hope you will because you seem nice, and you’ll learn to harbor a deep, but completely irrational distaste for St. Augustine. If you’ve moved here from the Northeast, you might consider it kind of a Florida version of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. Who is who in our rivalry, no one really knows. (Personally, I’m a Red Sox fan and don’t know if I want to be the Yankees in this situation, despite the statistics.)

But really, the Red Sox is only my American League team. If you’re a Pensacolian, you learn to love the Atlanta Braves. And that the greatest Brave of them all, Hank Aaron, was our Gulf Coast homeboy from our neighboring Mobile, Alabama. And you’ll realize that while we’re neighbors − howdy Mobile! − that we’re friendly, though we don’t really hang out a lot. Though we’d join them in a dispute against St. Augustine. (Again, there’s no real reason except some kind of Florida history chicken-or-the-egg analogy.)

You’ll learn religious folk and heathens alike have a strong nostalgia for something called the Round-Up, a western-themed church festival at St. Anne’s Catholic Church − different church, this Anne has an “e” and is in Bellview instead of Gulf Breeze. I know you’re thinking church festivals are a dime a dozen – OK, maybe more now because you can’t get a dozen of nothing for a dime. You’ll also learn that sometimes people might mess with or misuse grammar, but it’s not because they’re dumb. It’s just become sometimes it just rolls off the tongue better that way.

But the St Anne’s Round-Up? Every year the church’s vast pecan grove was transferred into the magical old-west town of Beverly Junction, complete with gunfighters dueling, can-can girls can-canning, kids fishing ducks out of plastic ponds with magnet poles for prizes and bigtime celebrities such as the Six-Million Dollar Man Lee Majors, Rocky Marciano, the real Tom Hanks guy from “Apollo 13” − the imposing, impressive, heroic Navy Capt. Jim Lovell, mission commander of the legendary flight, a victory torn from failure; Tony Danza who did no such thing, but was still funny. Not many other church festivals can brag about having “Miss Kitty” from “Gunsmoke” presiding over their shindig. And about the pecan grove, you’ll learn it’s not “PEE-can,” it’s “puh-“CAHN“.

You’ll learn hot sauce can go on anything and that grits can be gourmet.

You’ll learn that strangers who smile at you or say “Hello” as they pass by aren’t hitting on you, they’re just nice that way.

You’ll learn that you can surf at Pensacola Beach. Seriously, lots of folks do.

You’ll learn what a Bushwacker is. (No clueless “Family Guy” fans, don’t say “Giggity.” Like I said, you’ll learn.)

You’ll learn north of Nine Mile Road is different than south of Nine Mile. Not better or worse. Just different, with farms, small rural churches and fields of soybean, cotton, peanuts and corn.

You’ll learn that Pensacolians loved the fried chicken at long-gone Hopkins Boarding House, so much so that another storied and Pensacola establishment, McGuire’s Irish Pub even brought back the original recipe one day a week. You probably discovered already that McGuire’s, with its dollar-bills pegged to the walls, originally opened on Fairfield Drive, which doesn’t even have a fair on it. But it did. Wait, you already know that.

Let us know what else all Pensacolians learn if they’ve been here long enough. We know there’s plenty more.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Blue Angels shows, St. Augustine beef, mullet recipes Pensacola staples