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First of all, I agree with this article. As a Red Sox fan I truly hate the Yankees!!!!

Seriously though, what would you consider a personal question? "How are you?", "Sure is a hot one, today?" "How's your Mamma?"

These are most of the question folks will ask a stranger or minor acquaintance here in Alabama. The most personal question one would ask a stranger is "Alabama or Auburn?", 'cause the answer could cause a fisticuffs. Generally speaking though, that question rarely gets asked as most folks wear their pride; ROLL TIDE or WAR EAGLE, somewhere on their person or vehicle.

I once had a man ask me some personal questions about my daughter when I had to go to the school board to pick up her records. The fellow wanted to know if she was having problems at school. I did just stare at him, not knowing what to say (I was going to tell him to "mind his own bidness" but the clerk took me aside and told me he was retarded. Don't think he represnted the true Southerner.).

Now I am US Military retired having spent a great deal of my adult life outside of my native New England so I guess I must be a Yankee, even though my kin didn't really arrive in the States until after 1865. I always say we would've come down father South but the captain of the ship must have been a Yankee!

There is one question that bothers me, though. Folks down this way will often ask, only after they've got to know you, what church you go to. I am a Catholic, and I hate to be asked this, 'cause there are some folks who consider my religion to be akin to the Great Beelzebub himself. Then again, I think the Pope John Paul II, Bless Him, changed a lot of fundamentalists opinions about my Church. Anyway, when folks asks about church mostly they're asking because they consider you a good fellow and are only showing concern. I don't think they'd ever ask someone they didn't like what church they go to.

There is one question that bothers me, though. Folks down this way will often ask, only after they've got to know you, what church you go to. I am a Catholic, and I hate to be asked this, 'cause there are some folks who consider my religion to be akin to the Great Beelzebub himself.

If they are asking you what church you go to they are just godly folks wondering if you are too.

The best way to answer if you do not wish to say you are Catholic is to just say "I go to St. Whatever over on So-and-so street, where do you go?" When they tell you where they attend church you say "how nice" and that should be the end of the subject.

If they persist and ask what type of church you attend, say proudly that it is Catholic and then go into a long spiel about whatever program or activity you have at the church that you are enthusiastic about. At the end of your spiel they will say "how nice" and that should be the end. But should they ask more about your church they are sincerely interested or curious about it.

Folks in the South ask "What are you?", meaning "What church you go to?" just mostly as a polite question. It used to be a way to peg you socially (evangelical independent churches on the bottom, then Baptists, then Methodists, then Presbyterians, then Episcopalians) but that just doesn't obtain any more since you don't have to become a Presby or ECUSA to get promoted into management these days.

I'm Catholic too, what's more I'm a convert from ECUSA. My Baptist deacon GGG grandfather must be up to about 2400 rpm by now. . . . And you do meet some Jack Chick loonies around the South . . . mostly because they never met a Catholic before. I've had some interesting conversations. I can usually disarm all but the worst haters by quoting Archbishop Sheen that if the Catholic Church were really as bad as some people say, he'd hate it too.

Just offer it up! (It's taught me patience and charity.)