The south has a uniqueness that you can find anywhere in any American small town be it Tonnawando New York or Abilene, Kansas. We are taught from birth to be polite and respectful of other peoples opinions. We are also taught that you must defend your family, your state, your country and your heritage.
I have seen yankees pay five dollars for a boll of cotton in a plastic bag at the slave market in Charleston and seen friends shucked and jived out of twenty dollars by three card monty on a New York street corner.
Lewis, a great American, Grizzard poked fun at these stereotypes in a warm and gentle manner. I hope that I could do the same. The South you remember is still out there sleeping. You can get pork pig sandwiches and a cold beer and go looking for it. It may surprise you at being right around the next bend in the road.
Damn right we are proud of our southern heritage but even one of my heroes, Theodore Roosevelt, who was a New England Yankee had a southern mother. He was the first man to have a black man dine in the Whitehouse, Booker T Washington and was criticised sharply By Pitchfork Ben Tillman and other regional politicians.
We are Humans first, Americans second, and Southerners third. It is in our manners, our way of dress, and our speech you cannot and should not try to make us conform but should help each other celebrate our similarity and diversity.
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.