Born In The South

Being born in the South is an honor. If you weren't born here then you just don't get it. You may think you do from watching movies made by Hollywood, but you don't really get it and you never will. Although we do invite you to come and share our culture anytime you can make it down here. And, you are allowed to envy us, and then mock us, if you need to, for living in a place where the summers are so hot that tomatoes stew in the sunshine right on the vine. Where porches are made for rocking chairs, and rocking chairs for catching a breeze in the shade and share pitchers of fresh iced tea with sprigs of lemon verbena crushed into each glass.

It's not just a skin deep thing, it's a blood thing, and it's a history thing as well. There are Civil War battlefields dotting the landscape in the South that are revered as if the bodies of the dead had just recently been laid to rest.

I even have two friends who are O-FISH-ALLY members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. And one of them can even trace her family back to the Founder's of this country.
My personal heritage is not so long. But I do know that my maternal great greatfather brought his family here from Germany to escape the evils of that government at the time, to settle in Mississippi and farm His name was August and I may do more research one day. He was found by one of my UDC friends who loves doing generational research and took a few moments to find him for me. She is very generous that way.
His son, my grandfather John, was one of the sweetest and kindest men I ever knew. He always had a twinkle in his eye, and made sure my sister, brother and I got a dime to buy candy from the candy display in his small dry goods store that was once a landmark in La Grange, Tennessee. My mother was named after her mother, Blanche.

My paternal grandmother was also a gentle soul, and an amazingly good cook . She could bake cakes that would rival those found in bakeries in NYC. And she could ring the neck and head off a chicken in her backyard faster than you could blink. My sister still tells stories of seeing a headless chicken hopping around flapping it's wings in the dust of the back door, and how she just could NOT eat a bite of chicken that evening when she saw a platter of it all fried and crispy on the dinner table that evening.

I learned to love butterbeans, sweet corn, and icey slices of tomatoes at her table, and to sit outside in the summer twilight watching for fireflies while the grownups talked inside the house. Since my sister, brother and I were some of the city relatives, my country cousins would tease us with tales of all kinds of spooks that lived in old falling down houses and on the ride home we'd not argue about who sat where in the car. We were just glad to have each other close.