Posted on 02/14/2002 9:01:00 AM PST by 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.
You had the movie thing coming, for discussing "Billy Jack".
You forgot the Waffle House.
blam - you're welcome, "honey". :0)
By the way, I am still gagging over the sugar and grits! Yuck! But somebody mentioned tomato gravey. I'm still trying to figure out what that is. Never heard of it.
No seriously .. I do wish I was there .. Alway said .. the South has a great bunch of people .. nicest you'll ever find ..
Tomato gravy and biscuits, a family favorite, it is outstanding! Incidently, after reading this thread about grits and etc all afternoon, I had grits, eggs over easy, Conecuh Sausage, toast and strawberry jelly for dinner. LOL (no kidding)
DEO VINDICE
Since I have no garden, I'll have to use canned tomatoes. Gonna have to try it.
Again, you're so clueless it's hilarious. Just another BB all the way.
Mine was a large cold glass of buttermilk with crumbled up cornbread in it.
They haven't rest assured. Go to any good Q joint in the south and they'll have brisket on the menu.
In Texas we Q more brisket cause we have more cows than anywhere else. But we also Q more pigs because we have more pigs than anywhere else. We just have more BBQ and the best BBQ anywhere in the country. We are the capital of BBQ.
Interesting. One of the things I noticed growing up in the South, was that upon meeting someone for the first time, a Southerner would ask: "Where y'all from?". But a Northener would ask: "What line of work are you in?"
Don't know if it means anything, I just noticed it.
LOL When I was growing up, we always called it Easterbuster!! We spent our summers at a fishing camp in Gautier, where my Mama and one sister still live! A big bump also for Hattiesburg (my hometown, where 2 of my brothers live), Ocean Springs (where another sister lives)Pass Christian (where another brother lives), Gulfport (where a brother in law lives), and Jackson (where a sister in law lives)!
And we're stuck up here in MA freezing our fannies off! I wish it WOULD snow, at least we'd get something pretty for all the cold we have to endure! But everyone I meet here who has been to the South always remarks on how kind and considerate Southerners are, even to visiting Yankees!
My South is a beautiful place.
In 1972, my Aunt Mary Ann drove her 7 kids, my sister and me from Mississippi to Providence RI to visit one of her sisters and her family. Some friends of our cousin's actually asked us if we had ELECTRICITY yet. Needless to say we laughed in his face, but he was SERIOUS! It was amazing how LITTLE they knew of the South. When my cousin decided to come to MS to attend college, he brought two of his friends and they were astounded at how pretty the girls were! They sure enjoyed their 4 years in MS!
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