Obviously, the last item in the previous entry wasn’t part of “things that are different,” because people are nice in Wichita too. That was the beginning of “things that haven’t changed,” which I started to make a separate entry and obviously didn’t completely succeed in. So:

• Manners (rerun). People are nice here. Oh, I’ve already seen a pedestrian flip off a driver in a parking lot, and horns get used regularly. But people are actually pretty nice about merging and things like that (exception: they will come in off an on-ramp and expect you to get out of their way, but that’s exactly like Wichita). Outside our cars, they seem just as friendly as Wichitans so far - though it’s all very small-town around here, and maybe people up in Camden/Philly aren’t quite so phatic.
• Driving. Nobody in either place remembers to turn on their headlights in the rain, even though it’s state law (fairly recently in Kansas, not sure about Jersey).
• Mennonite/Amish influence. Wichita is part of a heavily Mennonite-settled area of Kansas, and Jersey is Pennsylvania Dutch-influenced.

Still accumulating differences, though.

• The local Ace Hardware’s change-a-sign informs us that they have crab traps and crab nets in stock. (Ace is the place with the helpful fisher man.)
• The grocery has seafood sausage, scrapple, and quail eggs. And twelve flavors of Mrs. T’s pierogies, never mind the other frozen brands and fresh pierogies. (New Jersey is in the Pierogi Pocket.)
• Ethnic diversity, take two. Having visited a WalMart a town or two over, I have to revise some of my thoughts on ethnic diversity around here. I found a lot more Hispanics there. Still not as many Asians (Wichita is a hub for, among other things, Vietnamese immigration) but an interesting variety nonetheless.

The college students are starting to drift in, so that should be interesting. Galloway is home to Stockton U, and our apartment complex is somewhat deserted over the summer; of eight units on our court, I think only three of them were occupied including ours.