If you visit the South, please keep the following in mind...

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[TheBigB]

If you are going to live, or visit in the South, you need to know the rules. In an effort to help outsiders understand the rules of the Southerner's mind, the following list will be handed to each person as they enter a Southern State.

1. That farm boy you see at the gas station did more work before breakfast than you do all week at the gym.

2. It's called a "gravel road." No matter how slow you drive, you're going to get dust on your Navigator. Drive it or get it out of the way.

3. The red dirt - it's called clay. Red clay. If you like the color don't wash your car for a couple weeks - it'll be permanent.

4. We all started hunting and fishing when we were seven years old. Yeah, we saw Bambi. We got over it.

5. Go ahead and bring your $600 Orvis Fly Rod. Don't cry to us if a flathead breaks it off at the handle. We have a name for those little 13-inch trout you fish for - bait.

7. Pull your pants up. You look like an idiot.

8. If that cell phone rings while a bunch of mallards are making their final approach, we will shoot it. You might want to ensure it's not up to your ear at the time.

9. No, there's no "Vegetarian Special" on the menu. Order steak. Order it rare. Or, you can order the Chef's Salad and pick off the two pounds of ham and turkey.

10. Tea - yeah, we have tea. It comes in a glass over ice and is sweet. You want it hot - sit it in the sun. You want it unsweetened - add a lot of water.

11. You bring Coke into my house, it better be brown, wet, and served over ice.

12. So you have a sixty thousand-dollar car. We're real impressed. We have a quarter of a million-dollar combine that we only use two weeks a year.

13. Let's get this straight. We have one stoplight in town. We stop when it's red. We may even stop when it's yellow.

14. We eat dinner together with our families. We pray before we eat (yeah, even breakfast). We go to church on Wednesdays and Sundays and we go to high school football games on Friday nights. We still address our seniors with "yes, sir" and "yes, ma'am," and we sometimes still take Sunday drives around town to see friends and neighbors.

15. We don't do "hurry up" well.

16. Greens - yeah, we have greens, but you don't putt on them. You boil them with salty fatback, bacon or a ham hock.

17. Yeah, we eat catfish, bass, bream and carp. You really want sushi and caviar? It's available at the bait shop.

18. They are pigs. That's what they smell like. Get over it. Don't like it? Interstate 65 goes two ways - Interstate 40 goes the other two. Pick one.

19. Grits are corn. You put butter, salt, and maybe even some pepper on them. If you want to put milk and sugar on them, then you want cream of wheat - go to Kansas. That would be I-40 West.

20. The "Opener" refers to the first day of deer season or dove season. Both are holidays. You can get pancakes, cane syrup, and sausage before daylight at the church on either day.

21. So every person in every pickup waves? Yeah, it's called being friendly. Understand the concept?

22. Yeah, we have golf courses. Don't hit in the water hazards. It spooks the fish and bothers the gators -and if you hit it in the rough, we have these things called diamondbacks, and they're not baseball players.

23. That Highway Patrol Officer that just pulled you over for driving like an idiot - his name is "Sir," no matter how young he is.

24. We have lots of pine trees. They have sap. It drips from them. You park your Navigator under them, and they'll leave a logo on your hood.

25. You burn an American flag in our state, you get beat up. No questions. The liberal contingent of our state legislature - all four of them enacted a measure to stop this. There is now a $2.50 fine for beating up the flag burner.

[KantianBurke]

That's another activity I just don't get. The fish market's right down the street. Can get som new deboned filets for $3.70. Seems like fishing for food is a bit of a hassle.

[Grenada]

It's NOT the same in the rural north and the south. I grew up in a small town in western PA, but I now live in LA. This e-mail is perfect!

[sergeantdave]

The south and hush puppies dipped in butter. Now you've got me hungry for something good, and there's not a hush puppy within 550 miles of me. :-(

[XRdsRev]

I am not saying the rural north and the south are the same. But they are not that different either.

I have been very fortunate to have lived and worked in several parts of the country. I have relatives, friends and business peers, North, South and West.

Americans generally are the same. They have more in common than seperates them, they are generally proud of where they live and of their ancestors, they love the United States.

Honestly I found the original email silly since it infers (albeit in jest) that the things listed in it are unique to the South....a few things are (mostly food) but most of it could apply anywhere in the US. I don't know where the heck you came from but if it is full of flag burning, baggy pants wearing, police scoffing, never saw red dirt, a pine tree or a farm in their life losers, then I congratulate you for leaving there. Thank Heavens I don't live in a place like that.

[Quilla]

There's nothing like fresh fish dipped in a mixture of corn meal and flour and then fried in peanut oil. You can't beat the scenery, birds (and beer tops popping) are the only sounds you hear, and the stress of the week just melts away.

[Johnny_Cipher]

Seems like fishing for food is a bit of a hassle.

I feel the same way about hunting. I can't see the attraction of spending major money on the license, the shotgun(s)/rifle(s)/bow, the intl. orange clothing that makes me look like Elmer Fudd on a bad color TV, then getting permission to hunt on the lease, worrying about getting my a** shot off by some other sleepy drunk out there, and dragging my lazy butt out of bed at 4 on a below-zero morning when I can drive to the market and get all the good meat I want or get venison from all my friends who DO hunt.

But I'll confess that I'm biased when it comes to fishing - no store-bought fish can match the taste of a freshly-caught bass cleaned and filleted in camp and fried up in a Lodge skillet with corn meal and Crisco. Add to that potatoes covered in foil and baked in the skin and a few brews, and its a meal fit for the gods.

[KantianBurke]

All that preparation's the wife's job! :> Instead of getting her huffy about you going fishing, just write down a shopping list for free and then let her do the work and open the beer. I gotta explain everything around here? :>

[SouthernFreebird]

Welcome to the real world. You can't smack a Yankee and not expect him to smack back.

Well it just amazes me that a fun email about Southerners is considered a SMACK at a Yankee...and you, bless your heart, definetly highlight one of the biggest differences between us......WE don't walk around with a corncob stuck up our butt always looking for a fight.

As for '10 reasons yankeedom is better' your right I prolly wouldn't think it funny...I'd actually consider it a miracle that ya'll could think of 10, much less one 'good reason'.

Yankeedom........bwahahahahaha what the heck is that?

[TheBigB]

Apologies for that, brother. Maybe mail-order? :^)

[SouthernFreebird]

You know we 'GRITS' thought of that bumper sticker all by ourselves....clever aren't we ;-)

[TheBigB]

There's a "tastes like chicken" joke in there, but I won't say it. It'd be tasteless. (Ba-bump)

[holdmuhbeer]

You bring Coke into my house, it better be brown, wet, and served over ice.

ok I was born and raised in nc and still live here but what the hell is this? i don't know anybody who pours coke on their rice, thats just nasty.

[KC_for_Freedom]

My Boy Scout Handbook said that old, worn flags should be disposed of by burning them.

This is true, you can take an old US Flag to the local Boy Scout troop for retirement. They have a nice ceremony. They and the US military are the only ones "legally" allowed to perform the ceremony. (So I learned at scout camp.)

[Ben Bolt]

Check out # 5 ROTFL !

[XRdsRev]

And you call yourself a real Southerner ?????

"Yankeedom" was a derogatory phrase coined in the late 1850's by Southern journalists. I used it as a self depricating joke. Way to go, by "not getting it".

You don't think that email was aimed at Yankees ? Who my friend do you think it was aimed at ????

As for having "a corncob stuck up our butt", I would caution you. It isn't the folks up North who are still whining about a War that ended 139 years ago. The reason you don't see an email titled "10 Reasons Why Yankeedom is Better" is that most Yankees are happy with who they are and what they have, there really isn't a reason to have to come up with a "we're better than you" list. That might have been funny when we were 10 years old, it's just kind of dumb now.

I am not interested in compiling a list of things that are better in the North than in the South. Both places have benefits and drawbacks. There are things I love about the South and things I love about the North. There are also things I detest in both places. Many of those things are the same for both.

Maybe you ought to get out a bit more. Relax and enjoy what America has to offer from all it's citizens. I hate to break it to you but good people are still good people, north or south of the Mason Dixon Line.

[Moleman]

"You're telling me grits cook faster on your stove than anywhere else in the grit eaten world?"

[Johnny_Cipher]

The reason you don't see an email titled "10 Reasons Why Yankeedom is Better" is that most Yankees are happy with who they are and what they have, there really isn't a reason to have to come up with a "we're better than you" list. That might have been funny when we were 10 years old, it's just kind of dumb now.

And if the Johnny Rebs keep whining about this, we'll just have to come down there and burn their damn cities to the ground again. :)

[eyespysomething]

12. So you have a sixty thousand-dollar car. We're real impressed. We have a quarter of a million-dollar combine that we only use two weeks a year.

LOL!

[SouthernFreebird]

Well I've been enlightened by a yankee...I wasn't around in 1850 so I never heard the term.

....and dude, your taking this way too serious.

[TheBigB]

Chill, y'all. We have common enemies now. Liberals :)