Living in the South

I wasn't born in the South, but I've lived here since I was barely walking so I feel like a native Southerner anyway. I've been a truck driver which means I've seen all areas of our nation. I have to say, I always return to the South and always will.



See, I like things like sweet iced tea with my meals. I like black eyed peas and fried okra and sweet taters just about any way you can fix them. Around here, we eat taters and we eat maters and we eat nanners. I like knowing that just about anything can be fried into submission, and served up with heaps of cole slaw or lakes of thicknin' gravy. I like coconut cream pie that's loaded with coconut in a creamy pudding-type filling and has 9 inches of meringue piled on top, coconut scattered on that, and toasted to golden perfection in the oven.

I even like hot, humid summers and I love mild winters with their obvious lack of snow. I like being able to grow some things in the garden in the dead of winter when most folks are just perusing seed catalogs.

I like going into a place and people I've never met saying "Hey, y'all! How ya doin?" And when I leave, the fond farewell is nearly always "Y'all come back!" I like "y'all" and "yes, ma'am" inserted into conversations. I like being called "Miss Ann" by folks, even those my age. I like saying and hearing "Bless his heart" when someone is obviously an idiot.

I like seeing 4-wheel-drive pickups with huge tires and a gun rack in the back window, complete with a hunting gun. I like watching teens congregate and you can barely tell where one ends and the other begins because it's all a sea of camoflage jackets.