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.
Did someone say "Deliverance"? You're gonna pray for me, boy, you're gonna pray for me real good!
You mean states where there are 5 million people and 15 last names? Yep, that's my south too. Well, we are BIG on family.
Bump fer the South.
Congressman Billybob
You forgot fire ants, kudzu, no-see-ums, those neat lizards whose tails come off when you try to catch them, tire swings, fans with funeral home advertisements, shelling butter beans on the porch, children washing their dirty feet before getting into bed, collards, men standing around smoking outside between Sunday School and church, and "Texas Pete" hot sauce.
We Texans are pretty sure we're Southerners... we love and identify with all the other eastern =======>> Southerners, but we are perplexed at why they've outlawed beef for Bar-B-Qs.
One of those things you would love to understand but are too polite to bring up.
Unfortunately work is intruding on my FReeping activities right now so I will have to read this more thoroughly later.
I will, however add that:
My South has the best basketball in the country, and I'm talkin' ACC, baby!
Right now, in the top 25, there is Duke, Maryland, Wake Forest & N.C. State!
Note there is *no* University of North Carolina. Every time they lose another game, it warms my heart, I tell ya!
Seriously, hope you are doing well and thanks for the ping.
FRegards,
CD
I grew up in Chesterfield County in southern Virginia and there is no ham in the world that equals Smithfield ham in my opinion. I haven't had any for years and I sure do miss it! It isn't even readily available in other parts of the south that I have seen. I was completely spoiled by the food I grew up with, almost all of it home grown and home made. When I have lived away from the south (far too much of my life) everything tasted like cardboard in comparison. I'm glad to be back in the south cause there's no other place like it on earth.
I'm with you on "that NASCAR thing."
You can say that again... Southern women are beautiful.. Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, hmmm...
Not a Cullman County hillbilly.(just joshing). A big Alabama bump!
Ain't that the truth! I remember, once, when I was stationed in South Carolina, I was having a terrible day and nothing would make it better. I was driving my car with the A/C out in the mild of August and mad as hell at the entire world. A young lady in her late teens was walking on the side of the road. As I passed her, she smiled and waved at me. I had to turn the car around and thank her. She made my day bearable and she didn't care that my and her skin color didn't match.
I like the South.
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