The answer, my friend...

If I remember correctly, there is a Native American word for the sound the wind makes through the leaves in the trees, through the pines.
Sweyolakan.
That is the sound I hear now, outside an open window.
The screen keeps out the bugs but lets in the sound of the crickets, the woosh and swish of sweyolakan. It is a sound I have heard all of my life. In my back yard growing up, there were about 18 pine trees and there were maples up the street. Wind would howl through them in the spring and fall, the change of season. It would be the lullaby to send me to sleep some nights.
The sound is still the same, 3000 miles away.
The change of seasons.

Being from the great PNW, I am used to a bit more civility, politeness.
Please, do not mis understand me. It not a lack of civility, more a brusqueness. You sit down in a mis level restaurant and you are greeted with "How ya doin?" asked in a way that states it is just rhetorical as hell.
There is a lack of eye contact, a lack of lingering at the table when dropping off the check, walking by to ask how things are and you answer the back of the waitress as she is moving away, no break in her stride.
I have history in food service, I understand busy and no time to linger so you can get the 6 top served before that other section's 8 top. But it was not that busy and our waitress had only one other table with 5 wait staff total just hanging out gossiping.
It is not just restaurants but at grocery stores, the DMV, gas stations.
I have no idea where this brusqueness comes from. It is a mystery I will look at in spare moments, listening to sweyolakan and crickets.

Listen to the wind, once in a while, just stand and listen.

C