Southern inhospitality

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Karen Vince is wearing a red hat, a red golf shirt and the biggest dang smile in three counties. She is standing in a hallway at the Jacksonville Airport making sure every single soul that walks within 50 feet of her gets a friendly hello.

"Welcome to Jacksonville," says Vince, 57, to a guy who's in a gray suit lugging a carry-on bag.

"I'm from Jacksonville," he grumbles, hustling by.

"Well, welcome back then!" she replies with a smile.

Then she pauses and admits a rather obvious secret. "I have spunk."

Around here, she isn't alone. There are 9,499 just like her here in an army of hyper-happy volunteers so overcome with civic pride they are determined to be friendlier, more helpful and more pro-Jacksonville than the next.

There is only one thing that can darken the mood of this merry band.

"Tony What's His Name," said Vince, a sudden scowl sweeping across her face.

That's Tony "What's His Name" Kornheiser, the Washington Post columnist and ESPN talking head who's Public Enemy No. 1 in a town with so many pleasant people there doesn't appear to be a Public Enemy No. 2.

The most intriguing non-sports story at the Super Bowl is the social experiment of what happens when you combine the nation's largest sporting event and thousands of basically snarky journalists with a sleepy, thin-skinned town that few outside of North Florida think is a major city.

Kornheiser couldn't even wait until this week to unleash an attack on Jacksonville, which he figured (in trademark humor) is a backwater, bucktooth burg. Since Kornheiser has numerous powerful mediums to get his opinion out – newspaper, radio, television, George Costanza – everyone's feelings here have been mangled.

The guy even attacked the sacred Waffle House, which has so many establishments here you can't swing a dead cat without hitting one.

"What's he got against the Waffle House?" said Susan, a waitress at a Waffle House just south of downtown. "We've got the sirloin sandwich on Texas Toast now."

As you can see, there is no way this can end well. It's a culture clash of Biblical proportions.

Kornheiser isn't alone. He merely fired the first of many salvos. There is nothing easier for a columnist than to pen a pot-shot, your-city-stinks column. That's why they are popping up in morning papers all over the country, no matter how few readers want to hear the horrors of not having filet mignon for dinner.

Even the Nashville paper hammered Jacksonville for being too slow and too Southern, which is kind of like Kirstie Alley saying you've let yourself go.

For the most part, this is standard fare for Super Bowls, but Jacksonville is full of too many super smiley people to just take the jokes and move on. Monday's Florida Times-Union contained three rebuttal columns alone.

The locals are correct, of course. Few things are more pathetic than having sportswriters pretend they live the lace-curtain life of Donald Trump or Paris Hilton and lament the fact there is only one Morton's. In the whole town!

Personally, I'd send every one of them on assignment to Fallujah and see what they think then. But it wouldn't change anything. Sadly in America, it has become a negative if your town isn't like every other town. Which means having great barbecue joints, honky-tonks or mom-and-pop diners doesn't count for much.

All anyone in the sports media wants is another vapid martini bar to commit expense account fraud.

Now, in fairness, Jacksonville is not exactly a perfect Super Bowl locale. There aren't enough hotel rooms. Traffic could be troublesome. The ensuing onslaught of hookers and lookers may not mesh with local moral standards. And even the volunteers seem to have trouble describing exactly what makes this place great (you know, aside from "the people").

Bless them for trying.

"Where else do you have a major river, the intracoastal waterway and an ocean?" declared Karen Vince in all seriousness.

Yeah, well, Greensburg, Kan., has the world's largest hand-dug well and you don't see it getting a Super Bowl.

Ah, we kid. The Super Bowl is a television show anyway, and there is a pleasant uniqueness about the First Coast. Besides you have to respect a town that is taking it on the chin and only managing to smile even more.

"The people who are making some of these comments have never come here and experienced it," said Jill Herkel, another peppy volunteer who was manning an information desk with both of her parents. "You've got to give it a fair shot."

We agree. So if you are coming to Jacksonville for the big game, forget about dinner at restaurants that require suits. Don't count on strip clubs or a pulsating downtown. Do prepare for some down-home food, Southern charm and beer out of a can.

If that isn't good enough for you, tough break.

Besides, if you insist on steak, there is always the sirloin sandwich on Texas Toast.

"The one good thing," smiled Susan back at the Waffle House, "is we are all going to make a lot of money."

Which is always the last – and sweetest – laugh of all.