[Devil_Anse]

"boorishness"

Once they got out of college, there was not a tiny smidgen of boorishness in any southern man I've ever known.

"Suspicious" of blacks? Southern men (I guess we're talking about white men here, though the author presumptuously ignores the southern black man), and for that matter, southern women, were not the slightest bit suspicious of black men and women, before other people interfered with the relationship, for better or for worse. There was not suspicion btw southern blacks and whites back then--there was, in fact, a strange closeness, and a very deep understanding of one another, for better or for worse.

[Lauratealeaf]

There was not suspicion btw southern blacks and whites back then--there was, in fact, a strange closeness, and a very deep understanding of one another, for better or for worse.

That is so true. My own grandfather had a black man named Charlie who worked for him at his drycleaning business and Charlie was always the one that my brothers, sister and I wanted to see when we would go to visit. He was a very good man and one of the pall-bearers when my grandfather died.