Posted on 09/21/2009 12:50:12 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Dear Old Friend,
It was wholly a pleasure to hear your theory about where the South ends, probably because any theory about the South will get a conversation going around dinner tables, at barber shops, in graduate seminars on Southern history, and just about anywhere else in these talkative latitudes.
Your theory is that the South ends where the last monument to the Confederate soldier can be seen. This would mean that Bentonville, up in the far northwest corner of Arkansas, and known far and wide as the capital of Wal-Mart, qualifies as Southern. This might comes as a surprise, or even an unwarranted claim, to folks in Arkansas farther south, who think of the northwestern corner of the state as Midwestern. Or at least Oklahoman.
If you think being considered Midwestern is a step up from Southern (and I am rather fond of Midwesterners myself with their open, friendly manner), then you're not a Southerner. If you think of it as a step down, then you're a Southerner no matter where you live. Or at least you're someone who prefers the distinctive to the bland.
I know where the South ends in Arkansas. Or begins, depending on which way you're traveling. It's at the Mammoth Orange diner in Redfield, Ark., colloquially known as the Big Orange. Check it out. You can have one of those big burgers while you're there. I wonder if they still serve Grapette sodas. An RC Cola and a Moon Pie might be too much to hope for in these all too advanced times.
The South ends at Redfield because Southernness is a function of mean elevation above sea level: the lower the altitude, the more black folks and black soil, the more traces of the plantation economy and culture, the more Southern. Which is why the Arkansas delta is more Southern than the Arkansas hills. Redfield is just before the hills begin, therefore it's on the uneven line of demarcation between North and South. Q.E.D.
I've often thought the Big Orange ought to put up one of those markers like they have out west to note the continental divide. Only this one would say: "Here the South Ends, May the Lord Be With You. (At Least as Far as Little Rock.)" On the other side, the marker would say: "Welcome to the South, Y'all." The welcome wouldn't be complete without that second-person plural. Not just geography and climate change when you enter Dixie, but the language.
So how come you find pockets of deep-dyed Southernness in unlikely places like the hills of eastern Tennessee or in the middle of Missouri? The then-little town of Columbia, Mo., where I went to school for a couple of idyllic years, was in Boone County, which at the time used to be called Little Dixie.
My explanation: Southerners on the periphery of the South have to be the most aware of their Southernness in order to hold on to their identity. The way you might find the most ardent nationalists of any stripe on the outskirts of the nation. See George Orwell's essay, "Notes on Nationalism."
Southernness, it turns out, is a moveable feast, for Southern is more than a geographical designation; it's a cultural one. Folks in Mississippi don't have to talk about being Southern; they just are, while the baneful tribe of professional Southerners seems to crop up most conspicuously in the outer reaches of Dixie.
There's also a Southern diaspora, which knows no bounds; you may run into representatives of it on New York's Upper East Side or in Paris' fashionable Sixteenth Arrondissement. Or in a simple little pension in Florence. Just listen for an accent that sounds like home and there the South will be, for the South extends far beyond the South,
The other Great Question of our time, or any American time, is: Where does the West begin? That's a column for another day. But one sure nominee would be Kansas City, Mo., though I've heard it said that Fort Worth is where the West begins while Dallas is where the East peters out.
As someone who's been lost more than once on a Dallas freeway, I can testify that Dallas certainly isn't the South. Indeed, those who claim the South fought the Civil War to keep Atlanta from happening may never have considered the possibilities of Dallas.
To be truly Southern, there must be something agrarian about a place even if it's a city. It must have at least a long-lost connection with an agricultural society to qualify.
Grits, black-eyed peas, hurry back, and all that.
Inky Wretch
I never knew that you're supposed to let women out of the elevator before the men. I know now.
I also never knew you're supposed to look behind you when going through a door, and hold it for anyone following you (Omigosh, even for black people! Who woulda thought there is far less racism in the South? It's counterintuitive to this Cali boy, but I know now that my opinion of the South was molded by lies and innuendo coming from scumbag yankees). They don't do that in California, and I realize that there is a lot more tolerance and "love for fellow man" goin' on here.
I feel truly blessed that God sent me to Texas and made me marry a small town Texas girl, and I shudder at the thought of raising children anywhere but the South.
When the Civil War comes, I know what side I'm on.
... There’s also a Southern diaspora, which knows no bounds; you may run into representatives of it on New York’s Upper East Side or in Paris’ fashionable Sixteenth Arrondissement. Or in a simple little pension in Florence. Just listen for an accent that sounds like home and there the South will be, for the South extends far beyond the South...
If you say “diaspora” you ain’t Southern.
“Oh Dixie Land where I was born.
Early,Lord one frosty morn.”
You can’t get anymore Dixie than Yazoo County Mississippy,
where the delta meets the hills.
I am not sure where Dixie ends I just wish it didn’t end.
Anything north of I-10 is yankee country!
I like the idea of drawing a distinction between ‘the south’ and ‘dixie’. I will point out that we should never have stopped using the term “border states” for some states : I have lived in Nebraska, Missouri, and Arkansas, and I felt/thought that MO and AR had more in common in folkways, attitudes, etc, than did MO and NE, and certainly more than AR and NE. I do not feel that MO counts as midwestern, at least not all of it, but it may not be *quite* southern...Border state is the best term IMO.
Having lived the first 27 years of my life in Arkansas, I've never heard any Arkansan deny that any part of the state is in "the South."
Florida is the only State that refused to surrender to the Federales at the end of the Civil War. The Governor wrapped himself in the Stars and Bars and committed suicide on the front lawn of the Capital rather then surrender.
Thanks for the info. I didn’t know that. But Florida was overtaken years ago by the liberal elitists and Snowbirds.
Hearkens to the title to a Three Stooges short: “Dutiful But Dumb.”
Being Southern is a state of heart and mind....;)
Southern Boundary of the South: Ocala, FL
Western Boundary of the South: Fort Worth.
Eastern Boundary of the South: The intracoastal waterway.
Scots-Irish hillbillies (term comes from their support of William of Orange, btw) settle much of Little Egypt, to say nothing of southern Indiana, reinforced by a migration from Kentucky in the mid 20th century.
Occasionally see the battle flag in SW PA, with the drawal present as well.
The Spanish or the English could never get any large scale settlement into Florida due to the susceptibility to disease in the swamps. While it is true that the ranchers who settled on dry land came down from Georgia, many of the citrus pioneers who came down prior to Governor Broward's decision to "re-route" Okeechobee and drain the everglades were from the north. It was really yankee citrus farmers and the original snowbirds who benefitted most from Flagler's railroad.
While it is true that much of the white proletariat that followed the railroad came from other southern states, they were always a minority on much of the east coast of Florida (and the Gulf from Sarasota south). Even a place like Tampa was more noteworthy for its Cuban, Italian, Jewish, Spanish, etc. population than its small population of "true southerners 100 years ago. In short, the only places in Florida that were truly culturally "southern" historically were the cattle counties in north and central Florida, and the panhandle. This is the source of the old joke that in Florida, you go north to go South, and south to go North.
... There’s also a Southern diaspora, which knows no bounds; you may run into representatives of it on New York’s Upper East Side or in Paris’ fashionable Sixteenth Arrondissement. Or in a simple little pension in Florence. Just listen for an accent that sounds like home and there the South will be, for the South extends far beyond the South...
If you say “diaspora” you ain’t Southern.
The true Southern term is Galut Temanit! ;-)
I am from Louisiana and that is the most agreed upon delineation there.
If by your first definition that the South is as far as a monument to the Confederate soldier then I would have to say its at least as far west as here as my home town of Richmond, Texas. Please look up the Jay-bird Woodpecker Memorial, and I challenge anyone who thinks the South isnt in Texas to say that to the descendants of the Old Three Hundred here in Texas...or to some of the members of my church.
St. Louis and KC were transformed by German, Irish Catholic, Italian, Slavic, and Jewish immigrants in the 19th and early 20th Century. The portions of the state settled by Germans outside of the metro area are definitely NOT southern. The Mississippi River region south of St. Louis, the areas south of KC and the “bootheel” region are very “southern” thanks, again, to the Scots Irish.
“The then-little town of Columbia, Mo., where I went to school for
a couple of idyllic years, was in Boone County, which at the time used
to be called Little Dixie.”
“Little Dixie” is still here.
I grew up in north-central Oklahoma and realized there was a difference
from where I lived and the area you entered by driving fifty miles
north into the Yankee state of Kansas.
Given the passage of time, I was a little suprised to find “Little
Dixie” as the name of a construction-trades company here in Columbia, MO
when I moved in during 2005.
I thought political correctness would have stomped this out by the 1990s.
But it’s still here.
But I shouldn’t be shocked.
The Missouri-Kansas border war still goes on if you listen to local
ESPN radio when Missour-Kansas football and basketball games are
discussed...with much passion.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.