MY SOUTH

Ever Vigilant ^ | Robert St. John

[sheltonmac]

Thirty years ago I visited my first cousin in Virginia. While hanging out with his friend, the discussion turned to popular movies of the day. When I offered my two-cents on the authenticity and social relevance of the movie Billy Jack, one of the boys asked, in all seriousness; "Do you guys have movie theaters down there?" To which I replied, "Yep. We wear shoes too."

Just three years ago, my wife and I were attending a food and wine seminar in Aspen, Colorado. We were seated with two couples from Las Vegas. One of the Glitter Gulch gals was amused and downright rude when I described our restaurant as a fine-dining restaurant. "Mississippi doesn't have fine-dining restaurants!" she demanded and nudged her companion. I fought back the strong desire to mention that she lived in the land that invented the 99-cent breakfast buffet.

I wanted badly to defend my state and my restaurant with a 15-minute soliloquy and public relations rant that would surely change her mind. It was at that precise moment that I was hit with a blinding jolt of enlightenment, and in a moment of complete and absolute clarity it dawned on me -- my South is the best-kept secret in the country. Why would I try to win this woman over? She might move down here.

I am always amused by Hollywood's interpretation of the South. We are still, on occasion, depicted as a collective group of sweaty, stupid, backwards-minded and racist rednecks. The South of movies and TV, the Hollywood South, is not my South.

This is my South:

- My South is full of honest, hard-working people.

- My South is colorblind. In my South, we don't put a premium on pigment. No one cares whether you are black, white, red, or green with orange polka dots.

- My South is the birthplace of blues and jazz, and rock n' roll. It has banjo pickers and fiddle players, but it also has B.B. King, Muddy Waters, the Allman Brothers, Emmylou Harris, and Elvis.

- My South is hot.

- My South smells of newly mowed grass.

- My South was the South of The Partridge Family, Hawaii 5-0, and kick the can.

- My South was creek swimming, cane-pole fishing, and bird hunting.

- In my South, football is king, and the Southeastern Conference is the kingdom.

- My South is home to the most beautiful women on the planet.

- In my South, soul food and country cooking are the same thing.

- My South is full of fig preserves, cornbread, butter beans, fried chicken, grits and catfish.

- In my South we eat foie gras, caviar, and truffles.

- In my South, our transistor radios introduced us to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones at the same time they were introduced to the rest of the country.

- In my South, grandmothers cook a big lunch every Sunday.

- In my South, family matters, deeply.

- My South is boiled shrimp, blackberry cobbler, peach ice cream, banana pudding, and oatmeal cream pies.

- In my South people put peanuts in bottles of Coca Cola and hot sauce on almost everything.

- In my South the tea is iced and almost as sweet as the women.

- My South has air-conditioning.

- My South is camellias, azaleas, wisteria, and hydrangeas.

- In my South, the only person that has to sit on the back of the bus is the last person that got on the bus.

- In my South, people still say "yes, ma'am," "no ma'am," "please," and "thank you."

- In my South, we all wear shoes....most of the time.

My South is the best-kept secret in the country. Please continue to keep the secret....it keeps the idiots away.

[sweetliberty]

"Can't bring up the South on FR without some do-gooder self righteous paternalistic cretin removing his or her head out of their arse to say something demeaning so they can feel better about themselves in their all knowing glow of self virtue."

This should be the quote of the Day! LOL!

[oyez]

we saw what happened to Florida!

Southern Florida is now half Canadian and half Cuban. One has to feel sorry for the Cubans.

[blam]

The electronic revolution that California still takes credit for began in 1957 in Texas when Jack Kilby (Texas Instruments) invented the intergrated circut (computer chip). Kilby was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 2000 (43 years later) for this discovery/invention. It took the Japanese 30 years to issue a Japanese patent. TI subsequently won about $1b in 'intellectual property' suits from the Japanese. Nobel Prize In Physics 2000

[Paul Atreides]

Someone I once knew had a pen-pal in New Jersey and he didn't believe that we have indoor plumbing in the South.

Also, I remember reading, a few years ago, that the memorial for Robert E. Lee is immaculate, while the memorial for Grant is sprayed with graffiti, littered with trash, and in a general state of nastiness.

[blam]

"I like to mix my fried eggs and grits together!"

My dad (bless his soul) did that but added catsup also.

[wimpycat]

THe south truly has changed greatly. That's why it's so fallacious to assume it was not once a barbaric impoverished hell-hole, which it was. More's the achievement today.

"Fallacious"? Hey, no dirty talk around here!

Yes, I know what it really means. I was just being facetious!

[Twodees]

At the risk of being lynched, I have to admit something. I'm from the piedmont area of South Carolina, and I went through life until I was 30 thinking that I hated barbecue. When I moved to East Texas at the age of 30 and had beef brisket, smoked turkey and Pittsburgh hotlinks for the first time, I became a barbecue lover.

I have never been able to stand pulled pork, minced pork "barbecue", ribs slathered in sauce or chicken with that same sauce cooked on it. I'm considered a heathen where I come from now, but I agree with Texans when they say "you can't barbecue a pig or a chicken".

[WhiskeyPapa]

Redneck Valentines Day Poem

Straight from L.A. (Lower Alabama)
Collards is green,
my dog's name is Blue
and I'm so lucky
to have a sweet thang like you.

Yore hair is like cornsilk
a-flapping in the breeze.
Softer than Blue's
and without all them fleas.

You move like the bass,
which excite me in May.
You ain't got no scales
but I luv you anyway.

Yo're as satisfy'n as okry
jist a-fry'n in the pan.
Yo're as fragrant as "snuff"
right out of the can.

You have some'a yore teeth,
for which I am proud;
I hold my head high
when we're in a crowd.

On special occasions,
when you shave under yore arms,
well, I'm in hawg heaven,
and awed by yore charms.

Still them fellers at work,
they all want to know,
what I did to deserve
such a purdy, young doe.

Like a good roll of duct tape
yo're there fer yore man,
to patch up life's troubles
and fix what you can.

Yo're as cute as a junebug
a-buzzin' overhead.
You ain't mean like those far ants
I found in my bed.

Cut from the best cloth
like a plaid flannel shirt,
you spark up my life
more than a fresh load of dirt.

When you hold me real tight
like a padded gunrack,
my life is complete;
Ain't nuttin' I lack.
Yore complexion, it's perfection,
like the best vinyl sidin'.
despite all the years,
yore age, it keeps hidin'.

Me 'n' you's like a Moon Pie
with a RC cold drank,
we go together
like a skunk goes with stank.

Some men, they buy chocolate
for Valentine's Day;
They git it at Wal-Mart,
it's romantic that way.

Some men git roses
on that special day
from the cooler at Kroger.
"That's impressive," I say.

Some men buy fine diamonds
from a flea market booth.
"Diamonds are forever,"
they explain, suave and couth.

But for this man, honey,
these won't do.
Cause yor'e too special,
you sweet thang you.
I got you a gift,
without taste nor odor,
more useful than diamonds...
IT'S A NEW TROLL'N MOTOR!!

[blam]

"Eufaula, Andalusia, Cullman and Hanceville!"

I bet you know where Wicksburg is also.

[TexasRepublic]

Unappreciative Yankees go home!

[FatherTorque]

Here's a few more.
In my South NASCAR is the #1 sport.
In my South we like big porches on our houses.
In my South nothing is sexier than a woman with a Georgia accent.
In my South towns have more BBQ joints than beer joints.
In my South we eat rhubarb and fried green tomatoes.
In my South biscuits and gravy is a meal.
In my South we don't care how you do it up North!!

[sweetliberty]

"In my South, we put our eccentrics right on the front porch where everybody can see them"

And we give our "special" people jobs that they can do and make them part of the community. Many do not draw disability for being "special."

Where I grew up we had a couple of such people. Percy mowed everybody's lawns and lived with his family and loved reading "The Grit." Donnie was the retarded twin of a "normal" brother...back before there was a PC term for mental retardation. When he got older he was put to work at a local barbeque place washing dishes and helping with the cooking. These kind of people are part of what makes our communities unique.

[oyez]

Those ole boys out in the woods whould not have done to yankees what they the did to Ned Beaty and John Voit. Yankees would have came back with their friends. Next thing you know there would be a whole new community on the Chatahochie

[Malcolm]

Except for Denver and San Antonio, I've never been outside the South. Of course they're going to make fun of you when you're on their turf. My point is that Yanks and others who hold these convenient, self-serving stereotypes are themselves ignorant hicks. I was in basic in San Antonio with about half of then Southerners and the other half from Minnesota. I don't remember too many "Gophers" making fun of me, but then I'm physically a big guy, and that might have stopped them. Later, when in college in Atlanta, I was told by a prof that this is all non-Southerners do is make fun of the South. If you're on someone else's turf, that's how it is. If I ever went to a place known for anti-Southern sentiment, (Northeast, Cali, etc), then I would already know that I would face a lot of negative comments. Not many states in the West are like that, since the bulk of Southern culture is also Western culture. Most Yanks that live in Metro Atlanta are decent and nice. Whether they keep their views to themselves or really like this area is a mystery, but that's their right. I'm not asking non-Southerners to accept me; I couldn't care less what they think. As far as things to make fun of, the non-Southerner has plenty of things that they have to defend as well. I have sincere respect for non-Southerners, but they are not superior to me or others here; as if that had to be said.....

[txhurl]

On one of my many Carolina trips, there was a billboard:

With values, we don't need laws. Without values, no law we have will ever work.

Paraphrased, anyway, but that's how it works there and here. Like someone said, we revere our history and consider bad behavior an insult to our ancestry.

Except for riddling speed-limit signs with bullets. It may look like bad behavior, but really it ain't..perhaps a southern analogue to graffiti. Or rotating our lead, to keep it fresh. (Nah, it's cuz we like to BLAST things!! :))

[oyez]

When Ya'll going to change the name of Arab to smumthin' else? That ain't politically correct.

[txhurl]

See, now you gonna start a war...... if you can't say anything naaace, then...

[AUgrad]

First you get a hamburger bun, cover it in shredded BBQ pork or beef(I prefer pork). Spoon large portions of vinegar slaw on top (no mayonnaise slaw). Liberally apply mayo to both sides of the bun. Saturate the mixture in the hottest BBQ sauce you can find. Eat quickly before the bun falls apart.

BTW. I went to New Orleans a few years back. Went into a restaurant and ordered a BBQ sandwich. They brought it to me without slaw. I asked for some so I could eat my sandwich.The cook said "you must be from Alabama". I said "how did you know?" He said, "only people from Alabama eat slaw on their sandwiches."