NOTE: The Southern Delicacies subseries will be intermingled amongst full-size entries.*

The Hushpuppy

Most commonly seen at local fried seafood houses and barbecue joints, the Southern hushpuppy is among many unsung culinary treasures in the South. Originating during the Civil War, hushpuppies were small nuggets of leftover cornbread, carried in the pockets of Confederate soldiers to feed to their dogs in order to keep them silent on the warpath. (Hence the name.) Now, they’ve morphed into a combination between cornbread, cake and a doughnut and are simply divine when still steaming and dunked into a dish of soft honey-butter. Strangely, hushpuppies aren’t usually seen in homecooked meals but are sometimes found at high-end seafood restaurants in attempts to boast an authentic Southern atmosphere. This effort is usually successful if the restaurant owner or sous chef is a native of the South but any attempt to make hushpuppies by a Yankee will be severely scorned unless his or her parents are Southerners, due to the strict I-Know-Your-Mama/Who’s-Yer-Papa clause.

* OTHER NOTE: Because of the incredible popularity of these blog entries, I’ve bought another domain and am working on setting up a separate blog just for this subject (one reason why this entry is so short), so I can still write about my personal life here and those people who are just interested in reading about Southernisms don’t have to wade through my self-indulgence. I’ll let you know when it’s up. ::sigh:: Like I don’t have enough going on right now. Ah well, at least I genuinely love all the projects I’m working on, even if I’m running out of burners to keep these pots on.

Look, I’m as anti-corporation and overspending as Rev. Billy and The Church of Stop Shopping as I hate how the big superstores are wrecking and sapping the character out of small town America and treating their employees like slaves and outsourcing labor to underpaid poverty-stricken villages. However, there are a handful of Southern-based food corporations that are just plain doin’ us proud and that, frankly, I don’t ever want to live without.

Now, the obvious go-to Southern corporation is a little mom-and-pop company called Coca-Cola you may or may not be familiar with. Oh, good lordy, I’ve never seen a group of people so excited to scream their name repeatedly across the globe for the sake of indoctrination (well, other than Disney… and McDonald’s… and America… but still!) and, honestly, the marketing has gone from cute and innocent to outright ridiculous. For example, if you should ever have the time/money you’d like to dump in a sewer, you may want to visit Coca-Cola’s museum, located in the beverage’s native town of Atlanta, Georgia. There, you’ll learn about the “rich history” of this admittedly delicious drink and be exposed to more hyper-sentimental advertising than you can possibly imagine. Coca-Cola proudly shows montages of their archived ad campaigns, where they subtly claim to have inspired greatness, unified cultures and genuinely changed the world for the better since their founding. You’ll see images of WWII soldiers coming home from war, being greeted with a Coke at the door and Special Olympians breaking the ribbon at the finish line just before enjoying a fresh Coke and shoeless African children smiling with glass bottles of Coke in their hands and, oh! It’s just so special and powerful and makes you want to buy seven cases and hand them out to new friends on your way back to your car.

Here’s the secret: Southerners aren’t that impressed. I mean, we love Coke and all but we don’t brag about it being part of our culture the way we do with other things. And, yes, Georgians love Coke because it’s part of their specific heritage and it brings a crapload of income to their state but the rest of us just think Coke has gone and gotten “too good for it’s raisin’” and we don’t take kindly to that.

Same goes for Pepsi, although they have more fun in their advertising, so we let them slide.

FUN FACT: In every blind study since the company was founded, RC Cola has beaten both Pepsi and Coke in taste tests. True story.

Let’s get to the good stuff. This particular entry is dedicated to Southern foodie corps in the restaurant realm.

First up is a small company from my original hometown of Burlington, NC. Now, the company isn’t huge, per se, but they’ve far surpassed the multi-million dollar mark and are growing exponentially. If you know of Biscuitville then you “get it”. You’re already wiping drool from your chin and thinking about the sting those flat, spicy sausage patties leave on your tongue. However, the legendary biscuits are an old secret from a family my dad’s parents are apparently close friends with. The story goes that, when the grandmother of Biscuitville’s founders passed away she allowed the brothers a choice: One could have the farm and the other could have her biscuit recipe. (My dad rolls his eyes at this, but it makes for a great marketing angle.) Now, the company owns over 50 restaurants in NC and VA (that are PACKED from 7-10 every day of the week) and has no plans to slow down.

But no Southerner is dumb enough to try to compare Biscuitville with the holy institute of Bojangles. The North Carolina-based company sells roughly 3 bajillion “Cajun-style” spicy chicken breasts on warm, buttery biscuits every year to thousands of Southeasterners who have no idea whether or not it tastes like anything from America’s Cajun community and really don’t even care. While you could treat yourself to a side of “Botato Rounds” (tater tots) or “dirty rice”, you might as well experience real bliss by getting their spicy seasoned fries, which will make you contemplate selling your home/car/children to afford bulk quantities of. Top it all off with a bucket of their award-winning sweet tea (it’s the best fast-food sweet tea out there as far as I’m concerned) and you’ve entered nirvana, my friend. (Silly Buddhists and their silent fasting - don’t they know the same effect can be achieved in a deep-fried-with-a-side-of-sugar-water format?) And, much like sweet tea at an afternoon picnic, a tailgate party just isn’t a real tailgate party without a Bojangles Tailgate Deal (or two) in tow. Kentucky Fried whatwhonow?

Alright, say what you want about KFC and their world domination tactics (they have them in Australia but nobody bothered to tell those poor people what “KFC” stood for. Sacrilege!), they don’t deserve half the credit earned by the illustrious, hallowed Chick-Fil-A. Chick-Fil-A started as a mall-vendor-style franchise and began breaking off into freestanding restaurants… um… sometime. Anyway, now they have some 1,500 restaurants in 38 states and are only growing, slowly but steadily. Chick-Fil-A makes the best effing chicken sandwiches you will ever experience in your whole life, with chicken coated in a secret mix of spices and flour, fried and laid atop two signature pickle slices between two freshly buttered buns. Naturally, they offer this chicken in nugget form, although the chicken strips are made by soaking the chicken in buttermilk overnight before fryin’ ‘em up the next day. Pair this with their monstrous waffle fries and a giant lemonade and it just may be the best day of your life. (The lemonade is all freshly squeezed by hand, by the way. I know this because I used to do it. See the next FUN FACT below.)

Chick-Fil-A is run by the single creepiest-looking old guy you’ll ever see in your life, who likes to boast about his generosity and altruism a LOT. Much like Coca-Cola, the company looooves for customers to believe that they’re the patron saints of the South, giving to the needy, sending college kids to school, building summer camps for special needs kids, etc. And, sure, they do some charitable work but, more often than not, their loud self-promotion far outweighs the progress or impact they actually make. (For example: In order to earn the Chick-Fil-A scholarship - $1,000 - a high school employee must have worked at the restaurant for 30+ hours every week for at least a year AND must have a 3.5 GPA… which is - of course - impossible if his/her life is being monopolized by working at a fast food joint for $6 an hour.)

Oh, and Chick-Fil-A has also had this ongoing ad campaign that involves cows pleading with the public to “EET MOR CHICKIN”, in order to spare their bovine hides from human consumption. Sure, it was an adorable concept in 1995 when it first launched, eliciting microscopic chuckles from those who noticed, but the humor flew the coop (see what I did there?! hilarious!) some 10 years ago and now it’s just painful to deal with, like a 6 year old who milks a joke (again! I’m on fie-yah!) until you want to lock them in their rooms for the afternoon. (I guess they’re beating the dead cow on this one. Ba-ZING!)

FUN FACT: My first part-time job was working the drive-thru at a Chick-Fil-A across from a whorehouse, just a few roads over from Ocean Blvd. in Myrtle Beach, SC. And I highly recommend you never ever eat at that one, as the poor management lead to a group of guys bleaching their hair over the food prep station one night, breaking into co-ed fights over the fry station/in the freezer/in the back office, and a whole array of other unspeakably revolting acts that happened routinely. (I’m really not exaggerating.) The rest of the Chick-Fil-A’s in that town are manned by another guy who’s impeccable with his managerial tactics, so those places are safe.

Oh, and once when I worked there, a male stripper asked us to borrow our cow costume for a new routine he had in mind. We said “Um, how about no.” and men in cow costumes have bothered me ever since.

Southerners are not completely obsessed with the varied art forms of preparing fried chicken, however. Sitting humbly off hundreds of truck stops across the Southeast, Waffle House is one of those Southern staples that elicits feelings similar to those associated with that one weird cousin you have who doesn’t bathe every day and brings questionable company to family gatherings. (Or, in my family: me.) I believe one stand-up comic [whose name escapes me at the moment] really hit the nail on the head when he described Waffle House as “a truck stop bathroom that serves food.” Don’t get me wrong; the place has substantial breakfast foods and can whip up a mean omelette but nobody will ever stumble in there for a fine dining experience or even a classy Sunday brunch. Everybody knows that Waffle House was established for the delight and convenience of truckers and drunk people. This point is vindicated by the fact that the restaurant’s menus include illustrations for those unable to enunciate their orders.

However, no matter how sober, fatigued or starving-and-desperate you are when you find yourself in one of the 1,600+ Waffle House’s in the U.S., you’re never going to leave without having experienced the franchise’s own brand of magic. Of all the great Southern corporate restaurants, Waffle House is unique in its ability to display the most character and authentic flavor of Americana. Despite the industrial, sterile, hard lines and black-and-white tiles of the diner, Waffle House brims with color, brought in fresh by the incredible diversity of those who eat there. I don’t know why there’s a website dedicated to the freak show that is Wal-Mart clientele when there isn’t one for Waffle House. At Waffle House, there is an equal level of insanity but with a few ounces of Shady stirred in. You’re not likely to see anything too crazy in the morning hours but, after nightfall, any Waffle House in the country becomes a blossoming hub of ethnographic exploration. There is no singular demographic for the late-night Waffle House customer base. You may see a pimp with three of his… um… employees sitting at a booth right behind four middle-aged women with towering hair and Day-glow eyeshadow getting coffee on the way home from their Baptist Women’s Trio rehearsal. Truckers strike up optimistic conversations with strippers who are just off the clock or drunken sorority girls whose dates have gone to the bathroom for a suspiciously long amount of time. The real party begins when someone has the courage to walk up to the diner’s jukebox and play one of 12 Waffle House-themed ditties that nobody will ever learn the words to. Yes, if you want a thorough study of contemporary Southern humanity, don’t waste your time doing field work going door to door in small rural towns; just pick out a corner booth at their town’s Waffle House a little before dusk and wait for the magic to happen. And feel free to enjoy the coffee refills while you’re there.

FUN FACT: Waffle House sells more steak than any other American restaurant franchise. I don’t know how I know this.

I would be written out of my family’s will and cast out of society if I forgot to mention Krispy Kreme in this article. Simply put, Krispy Kreme doughnuts are the second best thing God has ever given us.

As I’ve mentioned before, the only time you should really be terrified of Southerners en masse is when the Hot Doughnuts Now sign flickers to life when you’re in traffic. Like a beacon of rapture and acceptance, the glow acts as a homing device for anyone within 4.39 miles of the restaurant, signaling to Southerners that the time for joy is now! Happiness and fulfillment is just a few quarters away!

The Krispy Kreme formula is a simple one: fried dough + sugar = magic. The empire started in the small-ish city of Winston-Salem, NC in the late 1930’s and, while you’d think that there would be dozens of similar corporations, somehow Krispy Kreme was the one that created The Perfect Doughnut.

At some of the older restaurants you can see the doughnuts being made, although I should warn you, it’s both an erotic and spiritual experience, which may be disruptive to anyone who isn’t fully stable and prepared for such a disconcerting event. You can watch an endless stream of circular dough float through a canal of oil, being gently rotated by loving, angelic automatic arms and then bounding up onto a conveyor belt where it bounces along toward a cascading curtain of glaze, shimmering in the early-morning sun. I’ve been brought to tears by the majesty myself.

FUN FACT: There’s actually a Krispy Kreme museum, by the way. I believe the theme is “Heaven: Behind the Scenes”.

In the last few decades, Krispy Kreme has really taken off and is now an international franchise, much to the amusement and slight smugness of Southerners.

A few years ago Southern writer Celia Rivenbark wrote a hilarious diatribe about how KK has gotten too big for it’s britches and is now just another trendy accessory seen in the hands of celebrities, not unlike the pocketbook poodle or windshield-sized sunglasses. She balked at the audacity of the company to put reheating instructions on the side of the box, declaring, “Reheat?!?! Everyone knows you don’t reheat Krispy Kremes! You eat them at the cash register while you’re fishing change out of your pockets and trying not to burn your fingers!” (If you’re Southern and you’ve done that, clap your hands. ::clap! clap!::)

But, unlike Coke (or “Ko-Koler”, depending on how far South you are) Krispy Kreme is still something that we cherish and proudly call our own here in the South. Maybe it’s because the company isn’t claiming to be saving the world - although it very well may be - or maybe because it hasn’t sold out and tried to change its image to something more relevant or maybe it’s because eating there makes us feel like we’re getting a hug from God, but, whatever the case, we take pride in being the people that are giving the world the gift of The Perfect Doughnut.

And, while their coffee may be pretty great, no self-respecting, moral Southerner would ever admit to enjoying Dunkin Donuts as anything other than a last-resort substitute.

A lot of Southerners have been screaming that “The South Will Rise AGIN’!” for decades, but nobody else expected us to come up so stealthily. We’ll call America ours one day as we slowly climb toward world domination, one Waffle House at a time.

MUAHAhahahahahahaha!!!

——————
NOTE: Anything that didn’t make the cut wasn’t important enough (in my opinion, of course, ’cause I write these) to qualify as part of the Southern corporate culinary canon. Oh, I know there are some great ones out there but I don’t have time to get into specifics; I need to educate the outsiders on the imperative knowledge before their attention wanes. Maybe if this series goes on long enough I can incorporate some of the smaller companies. We’ll see.

NOTE: I’ve decided that it’s best for me not to preemptively decide my new topics because then they feel like a chore and my writing just sounds forced and incomplete. There are too many things I’m excited to talk about as well, so I don’t want to waste time with mediocre essays. From now on, we’re talking about what I want to talk about when I wanna talk about it, enkay?

This issue includes two separate but equal Southern fine arts.

The Fine Art of Sweet Tea: House Wine of the South

When I studied abroad I met some of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met and decided to throw myself a farewell party and cook my friends a Southern feast. I made fried chicken, biscuits (the Paula Deen recipe. Duh), green beans slow-simmered with a ham hock, marinated summer veggies and a few other things that escape my memory at the moment. (I do remember a lot of gawking at the required portions of butter and sugar necessary for these delicacies.) Additionally, I made two giant pitchers of sweetened iced tea, one in regular flavor and the other in peach or raspberry or something. Needless to say, my guests completely ignored the wine on hand in favor of the brewed confection and drained both pitchers within the first half hour.

My mother called sweet tea the “house wine of the South” and I can honestly never remember a time when there wasn’t an old milk jug full of it in our home. As in almost all Southern households, it is the first thing offered to guests (my mom would even give it out in to-go cups to Jehovah’s Witnesses who knocked on her door as a consolation prize of sorts for not being able to convert her) and is present in at least one meal every day. To say that sweet tea is a staple is a bit misleading; in truth, it is an essential part of the Southern lifestyle.

Before I go any further, let’s get two things straight right here and now:

1) Sweet tea is not cold tea with some sugar stirred in. This is a form of blasphemy in the South.  You can always tell a Yankee who’s trying to dip their toe in Southern culture by their habit of stirring Sweet ‘N Low into a cold glass of unsweetened tea. (bleuck!) Every self-respecting Southerner knows that any sweet tea worth drinking has the sugar (or Splenda. See? We can keep up with the times!) boiled in just before you steep the tea and remove the pot from the heat. The fusion is what gives sweet tea that smooth, sweet taste that doesn’t bite or have a grainy texture like undissolved raw sugar tends to.

2) The sweet tea you get at loud, crowded seafood houses or independent pancake houses in the South is NOT what we drink on a regular basis. This is Karo syrup with water and dye mixed in and is so sweet that most Southerners can’t even finish a glass of it without copious amounts of lemon juice and a few extra cups of ice.

Sweet tea is a time-honored tradition that seeps into every orifice of Southern culture. Many women spend time perfecting their recipe and are filled with more joy and pride when complimented on their unique brew than they are when receiving praise for their tangible possessions, household, sartorial choices, childrens’ intelligence, etc. And, although you’d think that sweet tea is more or less the same, women will INSIST on telling you their “secret” to the perfect pitcher the very second you show your approval of their artistic expression.

However, if a hostess chooses to serve a flavored tea (usually raspberry or peach, although I have seen currant, orange and blackberry) at a gathering it is considered a bit of a novelty and each guest will take a small glass of it to sample, not unlike what is done at a wine tasting. Guests all inherently know that it is important for everyone to try the “special” tea before going in for seconds or even a full glass, although all these rules are negated if the hostess admits to using a prefab tea mix. (This is only permitted without judgment if the hostess has a full-time job, more than one child or is over the age of 65.) Additionally, there will ALWAYS be a pitcher of regular sweet tea on the table as per the norm, because a flavored tea or special brew is regarded as a casual cocktail, whereas sweet tea is a simple accompaniment to a meal. Much like the Japanese regard rice, a Southern party (particularly those held during the summer) is considered incomplete or an outright failure if there is not sweet tea somewhere on the spread, even if nobody drinks it. However, this is not something a Southerner would ever admit out loud and is usually not something that is even discussed. But when there is no sweet tea at an afternoon or evening gathering in the South, each guest will leave with a dull ache in their stomach and the feeling that something just isn’t quite right, although they probably couldn’t put their finger on what it was exactly.

Finding one’s personal sweet tea preference is the equivalent to finding one’s True Self in the South, often becoming a spiritual journey that takes years of soul-searching and meditation through dozens of phases and evolution. What your signature sweet tea tastes like says a lot about you as a person. Maybe you like yours watered down with more lemon, maybe you boil your sugar for exactly 2.5 minutes before steeping the tea, maybe you prefer using 7 Lipton family-size teabags for every quart you make… it all directly defines who you are and how you feel about life.

Me personally? I’m a bit off the map, really. I like to brew African rooibos with some cinnamon and Splenda, let it cool in a covered pot overnight and then put it in the fridge the next morning. It’s both warm and cool at the same time and tastes like a hug. That’s my sweet tea.

The Fine Art of Implementing the Word “Honey”

Before it was adopted by drag queens snappin-in-a-”z”-formation and domestic, suburban housewives, the term “Honey” was a term of endearment coined in the South.

The CARDINAL RULE for using the term “Honey” is that you are never, under any circumstances, permitted to address someone in this fashion who is 10 or more years older than yourself especially if the person with whom you are speaking is a relative. It will be taken as an incredibly disrespectful gesture and can have you branded as “rude”, a label that does not wear off with time in the South. This is the sort of event that can cause a chain reaction within your family that can lead to things like being written out of a will. I’m not exaggerating. I can think of maaaaybe 2 circumstances in which this sort of language would be okay but they are all extremely subjective situations and are not intended to be navigated by a novice. To be safe, just stick to the rule.

Also, the only people who are socially allowed to use the term “honey child/chile” are those of African-American descent. Everyone else looks ridiculous saying this, unless they are being ironic, which they will never do in the presence of an African-American.

These days, “honey” has a vast array of uses and an enormous variety of social connotations, so those who are unfamiliar with the intricate politics of the word must be very careful when talking to a Southerner, lest they come across as an arrogant, patronizing Yankee.

There are few words that have the power to be condescending, comforting, humorous, self-depreciating, friendly or reassuring - depending on the implementation - like the word “Honey”. Allow me to give a few basic examples:

“What can I get for you, honey?” ~ In this case, the word “honey” is meant to put the speaker’s target at ease. This type of phrase can most often be heard in the presence of grandmothers or matronly waitresses at local diners. The connotation establishes the speaker as an emotional or physical caretaker and is very very seldomly used by a male figure.

“Oh, honey, you’re telling me.” ~ In this case, the speaker is attempting to show empathy and express a sense of camaraderie with the person he or she is addressing. This immediately gives the conversation a tone of understanding and mutual respect with a playful, familiar atmosphere. This version of the term can be seen in a conversation with a gas station clerk as easily as it can between old friends. In both, the intent is identical.

“Ohh, hooonney…” ~ If this sentence is not immediately followed with “I’m so sorry”, then the apology is automatically implied. Using the term “honey” as a means to comfort someone is acceptable so long as the misery of the other person is not your fault. If you are the cause for someone else’s unhappiness, calling them “honey” will only belittle them and act as an underhanded power play. (This is often used in long-term relationships as a way to say “I’m sorry, but I’m still in charge here.”) The comfort-mode “honey” can be used with many different people, from acquaintances to close friends to children to complete strangers, again, so long as that person is NOT 10+ years older than yourself.

“Oooh, honey!” ~ This exclamation is a means to congratulate someone and offer them encouragement. It can be heard prefacing such statements as “Look at you all dressed up/climbing the corporate ladder/landing yourself a good-lookin’ man/driving that fancy car.” (This is when the term “honey child” is most likely to come into play.)

“Oh, honey, no.” ~ This particular usage is a backhanded way of insulting someone’s intelligence. By masking his or her disapproval as caring sympathy, the speaker creates a tone that allows him or her to insult someone else’s choices without deeply offending them. (ex: “Oh, honey. No. That dress looks like you let your cat play with it for an hour before you put it on.”)

“Oh, honey, I wouldn’t @#$! with me if you knew what was good for you.” ~ This is the implementation of “honey” that is meant to be both ironic and condescending. By calling an opponent “honey”, the speaker is making light of a situation, inferring that he or she is superior to the other person and able to take on such an inferior foe without much effort or emotional investment. Although “honey” is usually used to show affection, this ironic use leans more toward the “honey” that signifies pity. The practice of “honey” in this snide connotation can be used with close acquaintances, complete strangers, younger family members and annoying little brats but is never used in arguments between close friends unless the friendship is close to inevitable demise. (It’s hard to recover from this sort of demeaning remark when used in a legitimate argument.)

Honestly, I could go on and on with examples, although the differences in the utilization of the word will become very situation-specific and are likely to confuse readers who are completely foreign to this practice. However, I think the above examples cover most of the general effects “honey” is capable of.

All this being said, I strongly believe that, unlike learning a foreign language, a novice to the practice of using “honey” in everyday speech should spend a copious amount of time observing the art of implementing this term. Because of the delicacy of the term’s social implications, a potential user should be sure he or she knows all the subtle nuances of the language before engaging in participation.

Welcome back! I know I promised you four topics for this edition but I just got ‘to ramblin’ and these were all I had time/room for. You’ll get your other two topics next time. Promise.

Gospel vs. WASPel* Music

Lemme just put this one to rest up front: White people suck at gospel music.
There. I said it.

I don’t care how successful Elvis’s gospel albums were. I don’t care how beautiful Anne Murray or Alan Jackson sang “The Old Rugged Cross.” White people gospel (Or WASPel, as I like to call it.) is boring.

White people suck at worship music in general, when it comes right down to it. Traditional hymns are the most depressing, slow-tempoed, brooding melodies you’ve ever heard, sung with reluctance by old people who are just singing it -and insisting that everyone else sing it - because they did when they were kids. Even the “upbeat” tunes like “He Lives!” are sung in apathetic monotone in every traditional church across the South. There is no joy. There is no inner reflection. Frankly, there’s not really even any worship going on when you get right down to it. Even if you go to these contemporary church services, there are a handful of white people clapping on the 1-and-3-counts while singing along to a seemingly endless soft-rock ditty that’s just dripping with sentiment (Usually the lyrics sound like they were written by a 13 year old girl with a crush on her older brother’s best friend.) while everyone else stands awkwardly by, mouthing along with the words and thinking about where they’re going to have lunch. It’s the same “Schmeh”-attitude-singing that came from the last generation, just with some guy playing the drums instead of the organ. If anything, I think we’re boring God to tears as much as we’re boring ourselves. 95% of what white people crank out and call “gospel” is a grave insult to the entire genre, considering gospel’s incredible roots and what it stands for today.

Gospel in it’s truest form is the single most amazing phenomenon to come out of the South, in my humble - yet loudly proclaimed - opinion. As you may or may not know, original gospel music was borne of African slaves, both in their native country during the occupation of the missionaries and then later, working on plantations in the deep South. These beautiful people, in the midst of horrific living conditions that included being beaten, sexually assaulted, imprisoned, and having their children stripped from them while working tirelessly in sweltering heat, developed the roots of gospel music which, unlike the white people’s worship songs, wasn’t melancholy or forlorn but, instead, was raucous, joyful, hopeful and damn fun to sing along to.

There’s nothing in the world more inspiring and invigorating than a Sunday morning at a predominantly African-American church. The joy of the message and the music paired with the symbolic, historic integrity it stands for is enough to strike awe into the heart of even the most devout non-believer. Tight harmonies and simple melodies of this centuries-old tradition invite participation with reckless abandon, enabling church-goers to lose themselves in the excitement of such an incredibly rejuvenating experience. (Which is probably why these churches don’t get out until way after the white folks have eaten, gone home, gotten out of their church clothes and taken a nap.) The sounds facilitate joy, perpetuate hope and invite the loud, unabashed praise that I think God really appreciates the most and that gives a sense of fulfillment and recharged energy for anyone who dares to join in. There’s a sense of community in the songs - everyone admitting that we’re flawed but are working to be better every day, all of us singing praises and gratitude for our gifts and our lives, no matter how miserable things may be in our current situations… There’s the understanding that God is loving and caring, walking along beside us, expecting us to serve him by serving others and rejoicing with us - things that are rarely celebrated in the music of white churches with any form of enthusiasm.

I think the main difference between African-American gospel and white-people gospel is the pure emotion found in the former. Singers and performers of African-American gospel don’t hold back from clapping along or singing out or dancing or yelling out praises as the emotions wash over them. Meanwhile, I can’t remember ever seeing anyone so much as crack a smile while singing in the Caucasian churches I’ve been to. If people are comfortable being boring, that’s one thing, but there’s this overwhelming feeling of inhibition and preoccupation with the rampant solemnity in tradition, even though the creed specifically states “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord.” As Eddie Izzard noted, it seems so ridiculous to listen to white people sing “Hallelujiah” when they look like they’re on the brink of crying themselves to sleep.

I like the joyful noises and the “Amen!”s screamed back at the minister and the ever-accelerating tempos of gospel music as the crowd reaches a frenzy. I like the feeling of being part of something and actually giving back to a worship service as much as I’m taking away from it. I like the idea that people together create a synergy as opposed to congregating to have one person create a holy atmosphere. I like a whole crowd of people seeing each other as real, flawed people and singing about an other-worldly hope and divinity that pushes us forward.

That’s what Gospel music is about. And, as far as I’m concerned, it’s the closest thing to Heaven that exists in the South, aside from peach cobbler a la mode.

See white people do it wrong:

Country Roads

I’m not a John Denver fan at all, but the man was a marketing genius when he penned “Country Roads”, as discussing the song’s subject matter is a surefire means to tweak at the hearts of anyone who’s lived outside the metropolitan South. (And, no, “metropolitan South” isn’t an oxymoron.)

Now, this is not to say that country roads are all magical, wondrous vistas filled with beauty and flawless romanticism. There’s a lot of crap going on on the side of most country roads, like run-down trailer parks and abandoned gas stations with boarded up windows and overgrown parking lots. But even the idiosyncrasies are what make taking the “scenic route” worthwhile. As weird as it sounds, I really like looking at century-old tobacco barns and houses that are still standing although long-abandoned as I feel like they add a great deal of character to an area, and tell a story of progress and hope. (I know. I can hyper-romanticize a can of tuna if you’d let me.)

However, a lot of these unique country attributes demand that travelers adhere to the Southern rules of the road, of course. For example, in the summertime, you have to be careful around sharp turns and coming over hills so you don’t rear-end a slow-moving tractor or the occasional herd of cows being transferred to another pasture. You must drive slowly in densely-wooded areas at night in case you come across a deer, a possum or a hunting dog (although, if you’re like me, you’ll want to load the hunting dog into your car and take it to an animal rescue shelter - no animal deserves to be spray-painted and sent out to work at night.) In fact, you should really drive as slowly as possible at all times while in the country as there’s always the threat of running across chickens, dogs, children, horses, funerals, schoolbuses, churches being let out, early-morning farmer’s market patrons or old people cruising around for their “Sunday afternoon drive” (which is apt to happen any afternoon of the week). But, if you remember nothing else, for the love of God, don’t honk at anyone’s driving mistakes when you’re out in the country; Southerners take a reprimanding carhorn as a personal offense and you’re liable to get an entire town to turn against you if you hold down your horn for longer than 1 second - especially if you’re in the “downtown” district, which may be no larger than a blinking stoplight and a Quickie Mart.

It isn’t hard to get to a “country road” from anywhere in The South, although it’s significantly more difficult to get to one that’s particularly enjoyable. This has a lot to do with subjectivity, however, as every Southerner has his or her idea of what really makes an ideal country passage. For the redneck off-roading set, the muddy, unpaven routes or the hilly, rocky enlarged mountain trails are the most beautiful aspects of Southern terrain, perfect for flinging chunks of mud and scaling jagged, pointy boulders in a wild, testosterone-injected variation of a four-wheel-drive SUV. For the farm families, it’s long, straight roads constructed of curved dust that line miles and miles of flat, treeless fields.

I prefer a variety of Southern journeys, in all honesty. When I get into the Lowcountry, I love finding myself on narrow landbridges tunneling through quiet, forgotten swamps, shaded by a canopy of Spanish moss dangling from cypress. In the North Carolina Piedmont, I’ll load my daughter into her carseat and let the gentle waves of country hills lull her to sleep while I smile at the endless display quaint, storybook farms and houses that look like something out of old model train sets.

Of all the Southern country roads, however, the ones I love the most are the ones in the Appalachian. When making my ascent, I’ll roll down my windows to inhale the deep musk of rhododendron and fern. Even on the interstate, there’s a serenity that seems to settle on every traveler and compels them to gaze out over the endless landscape of ancient mounds that fade gradually into a blue haze. I’ll even roll my windows down when I’m riding through the mountains in the snow, listening to the hushed settling of acceptance as the trees get reacquainted with the rare bite of frost. But in the summertime, I love to hang my head out the window like a dog, watching the sun cut green columns through the blankets of leaves and feeling the humidity pool on my hairline, where the smell will stay for days if I’ll let it. I love reaching the fields in the valleys where the brooks topple over worn stones and cows lumber about on great hills where it looks like they should go sliding off any minute. I’ll honk and wave at farmers on tractors or kids tubing down the river or old folks shelling peas at their roadside produce stands. (Assuming I’ve already stopped for a bushel of apples.) I really get into my mountain roads and always insist on stopping at least once every 30 minutes to take in an overlook or mosey around a tiny village, usually to the chagrin of whomever I’m carrying as a passenger.

But, usually, by the end of the trip, anyone in the car is a convert to the simple majesty and elegance of the Great Country Road. Unless said passenger is my husband, who has seen “The Hills Have Eyes” and is terrified of anything other than interstates. Poor guy.

This concludes the Third Installment of the “Things I Love About Being Southern” series. Join me next time when we will discuss:

Festivals

Gullah Culture

The Fine Art and Usage of the Word “Honey”

Roadside Produce

In the South we pride ourselves on our produce, in case you haven’t noticed. In the summertime my mom used to make weeks and weeks worth of meals that consisted of just local, handpicked veggies. Steamed corn on the cob dripping with butter… boiled lima beans with my Gran’s chow chow on top … slices of huge, juicy tomatoes so big they could’ve doubled for a plate… Mmmmm… And, sure, you can get these things relatively locally at your grocery store (boooooo!) or at the always-bustling farmer’s market (the best part of waking up early on a Saturday) but everyone knows that the very best produce is the stuff you see in the back of a pickup truck or a trailer or a small shack on the side of the road.

Now, you have to be careful with what you choose to purchase from these entrepreneurs as not everything is safe. When purchasing from a mobile produce stand [read: Billy Bob's pickup truck] it’s best to stick to the tougher, less volatile foods like watermelons, sweet potatoes, cantaloupe, peanuts and maaaaybe zucchini. Believe it or not, a good tip to judging the quality of a mobile merchant’s produce is whether or not that person is present. I know this sounds strange but the best produce can be found at an unmanned stand with a coffee tin that reads “Honor System”. Because the farmer believes in the goodness of humanity and trusts you to do the right thing, you, in turn, trust him to deliver a quality product. And you will never ever be wrong about that. If you visit a mobile stand where the farmer is standing by, he has the option of changing the prices on you or pressuring you to buy more or breathing down your neck to make you uncomfortable so you buy a mediocre product in your haste to get away.

For the most part, produce sold in little rickety shanties with peeling paint and faded, misspelled signs is always safe. Clearly the stand has been there long enough to garner decent business over many years and obviously the local farmers have trusted the stand owner to sell their goods and be fair with the commissions, so you really feel like you’re a part of the community. The other thing about these places is that, unbeknownst to the throngs of tourists who happen to spot it while making a detour from the interstate, these are the pride and joy of many clusters of little farms because they are able to keep their produce local and give back to their small towns while building a reputation for themselves. If you hang out at one long enough, you’ll get it.

Oh! And one very important note about Southern culture regarding roadside produce: If you are on the way to a relative or friend’s home, it is extremely good manners to stop off at one of these stands and buy them a bag of fresh peaches,  tomatoes or sweet potatoes (and sometimes corn on the cob if you’re well-established with your host.)

I tried to explain this to an Australian friend who was visiting the States and allowing me to be her tour guide around the South. She seemed confused, “So, if I’m going to a friend’s house and I stop at the Wal-Mart grocery and get her some corn that would be weird and unfitting but if you buy a heap of corn from a toothless man on the side of the road that’s good manners?”

Exactly. Not only is it good manners but it will elicit a reaction of elated surprise and the inevitable refrain of “Gosh, these are beeaaautiful!” and you will be the highest valued guest of any that week.

Unless someone brings a fresh produce pie.

How we Deal with “Cold” Weather

In the South it gets cold for a total of 10 days every year. When I say “cold” I mean “lower than 40 degrees”. During these ten days, Southerners will become completely consumed with this obvious crisis and will discuss it amongst themselves incessantly as if having cold weather during the winter was completely unpredictable. It is not uncommon for two Southern strangers to stop and gab about how cold it is for twenty minutes in the dairy isle of the Piggly Wiggly or gas station cashiers holding up lines of patrons. Excitedly, they will compare notes and firsthand accounts as to how this insufferable weather has affected their daily lives with stories about how their car took 15 whole minutes to warm up or how the pond in their backyard had a ring of ice around it that almost extended to the middle. Southern mothers of all ages will call their children on a daily basis make sure that nobody has caught pneumonia in these gales of 38 degree (F) winds.

FUN FACT: Because we rarely get snow, we have reappropriated the fun Yankee word “toboggan” (which means “sled”) to now mean “knit cap.” If you didn’t know better, one could easily suppose we were running around reminding each other to put sleds on our heads and the heads of our children forpity’ssake.

The regularity of snow varies between specific regions of the South, of course. If in West Virginia or Virginia, one can expect snowfall to start in mid-December and continue weekly until mid-February. In North Carolina, one can tentatively expect one or two snows every year (which are mostly ice storms anyway), while South Carolina gets 2 or 3 inches every 2 or 3 years. If you’re in Georgia and Alabama, you’ll probably only see a local snow 3 or 4 times every twenty years and, if you see snow in Florida or Louisiana it is time to start packing your bags and saying your prayers because the apocalypse is nigh.

Although to an outsider the Southern Snow Reaction may appear as mere pandemonium, there are, in fact, three phases to the event of a Southern snow. These phases still stand regardless of the amount of snow, although the elapsed time of each phase in a community is directly proportionate to the inches of snow the area receives.

PHASE ONE: Because we don’t get much of snow that actually sticks to the roads, we don’t spend our tax dollars on fleets of snow-removal equipment. With this in mind, any weatherman in the South has the power to incite riots simply by mentioning there is a 60% or more chance of snow on a following day. This news stimulates nerve receptors in the Southern mind that forces said Southerner to drop his or her immediate activity, grab his/her keys and coat and drive in a blind panic to the local supermarket. Within the hour, the dairy and bread aisles will be completely cleared of any inventory, leaving the empty-handed to walk around wondering if powdered milk is really all that awful anyway. Unfortunately, 86% of these predictions turn out to be false alarms which inevitably leave thousands of Southerners with a gallon of milk in the fridge that they now have no use for because they rarely drink it at all.

PHASE TWO: There are a lot of times to be terrified of gleeful Southerners, like if you’re in traffic when the “Hot Doughnuts Now” light flickers on at the Krispy Kreme. But there is no single event that blankets the South with a deliriously giddy, childlike glee as the arrival of snow. Other than in the parking lot after the victory of a local university’s football championship game, there is no other time that Southerners are entitled to publicly lose their minds like they do when snow flurries begin. Even if the snow lasts 20 minutes and never sticks to anything, a Southerner’s entire day will be monopolized with an obsession for snow. It will be all anyone can talk about as if the rest of the world has completely ground to a halt because of frozen precipitation. And, if this snow sticks to the ground, then all hope of a productive Southern society is lost for the next few days. Even if it’s the second or third snow of the year, Southerners of all ages will frolic outdoors all day, crafting makeshift sleds (because we rarely have them), allowing ourselves to be dragged behind pickup trucks, stripping down to our skivvies and making snow angels, etc.

PHASE THREE: This is the part that always lasts the longest. After the roads have been cleared and everyone goes back to work the topic of conversation for the next week will be about the snow and everyone’s experience of the sacred event. They will compare this recent snow with snows in their pasts, arguing over which year had more or the worst ice or the most power outages. They will talk about ice-related tragedies that struck various trees in their neighborhoods. They will post pictures of themselves in the snow on Facebook or send it to family members with hour-by-hour accounts of the event, citing scientific data for emphasis. And just when you think it really should be over, someone will mention on Monday morning that the news is predicting a 65% chance of snow on Thursday night and the whole cycle will begin again.

Bluegrass Jam Sessions

I don’t listen to bluegrass music. I don’t have a single bluegrass CD, I don’t know the names of any well-known bluegrass artists and I don’t know any traditional bluegrass songs by name. However, I could spend entire weekends at bluegrass jams if given the chance.

Bluegrass jams can be well-organized and can happen at convention centers or colleges, but they seem to lack the comfortable genuineness (that’s a word! Look it up!) that really makes the experience worthwhile. Witnessing firsthand a slap-dash gathering of bluegrass musicians in a small, off-the-beaten-path location (that’s usually rundown and has no amenities to speak of) is easily one of the most invigorating experiences a person could have. There’s something so magical about clapping along with a rogue group of old men and women who play continuously for hours on end, smoothly transitioning into one song after the other as if they’ve practiced this line-up for months. The music will literally last for five or more hours with the musicians and singers joining in or taking breaks as needed and the atmosphere welcomes anyone who wants to chime in, which is how I’ve been known to take 5-minute spoon solos. (A friend welds together antique spoons and gives them a thumb loop and a leather wrist strap, perfect for the professional spoonplayer.)

I literally could ramble about synergy and magic and not caring about the genre of the music but feeling like you’re connecting with people and history and all that for a few pages but, honestly, it’s one of those things you really have to see for yourself. And if you find a bluegrass fest being held at a small Southern community center, go ahead and visit; if you make a good impression, the old-timers will tell you how to get to the afterparty.

Front-Porch Sittin’

Southern porches are where magic lives. These are where stories are passed down through generations and where kids learn to whittle and weave sweetgrass baskets and catch fireflies in small jars. Southern porches are where women test drive sweet tea recipes until they find the perfect combination. They’re where friends come together to trade gossip and catch up on what’s happening in their community. Southern porches perpetuate the ideal spirit of the South.

Porch-sitting is an obvious Southern tradition that harkens back to the days when we actually labored to make the food we ate and the clothes we wore. After long, hard days in the sun or in the kitchen, Southerners would go outside to sit on the porch and enjoy the gradual decline in temperature. These days, the tradition continues in millions of Southern households every night, and, ultimately, the rules haven’t changed.

The Southern Front Porch is the preferred porch for evening-sitting as it is where the reclining parties can observe traffic. I realize how ridiculous that sounds but this, also, harkens back to when people sat on their front porches to watch and see who passed by their homes on horse-drawn carriages and carts. The porch sitters could get their news from the people traveling home after work and invite them to come sit for a glass of tea or a bottle of beer or a mason jar full of whiskey (depending on the era.) These days the tradition is the same in that, when a neighbor sees a family sitting on a front porch it is a welcome invitation to come and at least strike up a casual conversation. (IMPORTANT NOTE: Unless you’ve been to talk to a group of porch-sitters more than 5 times, you must not take a seat before being invited to do so!!)

Porch-sitting activity varies from day to day. One day the men of the family may be sharing beers, playing chess and talking sports while the next day a gaggle of Southern women may be crocheting and catching up on gossip. Small household tasks that are easily translatable to the front porch include (but are not limited to) shelling peas, shucking corn, plaiting hair, folding clothes fresh from the clothesline and rolling cigarettes for the week. Any leisure activity like cross-stitching, reading, finishing crossword puzzles, etc. are to be done ONLY if you are the only one on the porch or if you’ve just stepped onto the porch where the other person/people are engaged in private leisure activity.

Frankly, I don’t think a house or apartment is worth living in unless it has an outdoor porch from which to observe the sun setting. A wrap-around porch with Kennedy-style rockers are ideal but any Southerner can grit their teeth and make do with a deck or concrete patio if needed. Besides, it’s never about the condition of the physical porch so much as it is the events that take place there.

This concludes the Second Installment in the Things I Love About Being Southern” series. Join me next time when I will discuss:

Gospel vs. WASPel* Music

Festivals

Gullah Culture

Country Roads

*WASPel is a copyrighted catchphrase, property of The Suburban Bohemian. If you should choose to incorporate this cool new word into your vernacular, you must report the reaction of your listeners to me as I’m still in the trial phases.

It’s a huge misconception that I hate the South just because I hate the rampant redneck/white trash (synonymous) population that screams their religious agendas into the political realm while living off welfare checks and, thus, misrepresent the majority of us who have brains and don’t act like idiots in public. The truth is that I adore being Southern. I’ve been Southern my whole life and, while I’m extremely well-traveled in the US and know scores of people from across the country, I’d have to say that I’m very proud to have originated from North Carolina (to be specific, although VA would’ve been acceptable, too.)

And there are a number of things about the South that I do hate. Like grits and Civil War reenactments and chicken bog and high schools having pageants in addition to Homecoming Court and May Court and Sweetheart Court (I’d never actually heard of that until I moved to SC) and chicken bog and hearing Skynyrd every time I go to a bar and John Deere couture and chicken bog and dishonesty disguised as manners… But there are at least a dozen things I like for each one that I hate.

I’d like to take you on a magical journey through the things I love the most about being Southern. If I can dispel a few stereotypes along the way, that’d be great but really I just want to make sure these things are celebrated in a public forum at least once. I’m going to need to make a number of installments of these as my list is quite extensive. This is the first of many.

In no particular order. Except the first one.

1) The Great Unifying Rule: There is one subtle undercurrent of inherent knowledge that lives in the hearts of every Southerner, young and old, Republican and Demmer and allows all of us to live in harmony together with the hope of a common ground and peace and understanding. And that is the unspoken but omnipresent Hatred of Yankees. Now, this has nothing to do with old Confederately-biased principles at all. In fact, the majority of us really don’t give a crap about that and do not believe the South will rise again, nor do we feel the need to make that happen. Many of us (if not most of us) have Yankee friends that we’ll talk about much like racists say “I have black friends!” or homophobes say “I have gay friends!” in order to justify their generalized hatred of a type of person and so it’s not really a hatred of Yankees as specific people so much as it is a hatred of them as a collective unit. The ones who choose to retire in our beautiful neighborhoods and then proceed to bitch about how we don’t have lacrosse/decent pizza/hockey etc. They’re the ones who constantly talk about how our food is nothing compared to that in [insert city of origin here] and how our schools just don’t compete and how our politics are all backward and how it’s too damned hot all the time and the humidity is unbearable. They’re the ones who pitch fits in restaurants/retail stores/airports/etc. because one of the staff looked at them the wrong way and they’re the ones who sue people left and right without any regard as to how these things effect the idea of community that Southerners pride ourselves on. They’re exhausting and, more times than I can count, I’ve found myself looking at a complete Southern stranger in the midst of a public Yankee tirade and exchanging the nonverbal “Why don’t they just go back where they came from if they hate it here so much?” mantra we’ve heard since birth.

FUN FACT: Expressing one’s hatred of Yankees is the ONLY TIME it is socially acceptable for a Gentile woman to curse in public.

But there’s a certain sense of pride in loathing Yankees together. It’s the one thing we can all agree on. It’s the one thing that breaks down barriers between generations and races, creeds and heritages. It’s the one tradition that is seamlessly passed on from generation to generation with a laughing understanding of the idea that tolerating these rude, arrogant people can allow us to feel a bit better about ourselves. And, knowing how incredibly petty that is of us, we’re proud to share that common bond as a means to identify ourselves as Southerners.

The Rest of the List:

Please note that, while many of these things have a lot to do with small-town Americana across the nation, I feel strongly that these are the definitive traits of this region.

Food On Sundays

I feel like I could write an entire book on this subject alone but let me at least break it down to the Need-To-Know Facts.

On Sunday, Southern people get up and go to church. (Not all of us but the older generations certainly did. In throngs.) Sure, they heard a sermon and there was that adorable performance of the children’s choir belting out “This Little Light of Mine” but what every single person is thinking of is food during the entire 11:00 service. This tradition usually starts with the early-morning run to a locally-owned doughnut shop. If one’s town doesn’t have one of these always-kitschy-and-outdated gems (or a Krispy Kreme) then everyone will congregate at the town’s Bojangles. This will be justified as every patron intends to bring enough biscuits or doughnuts for everyone in his/her Sunday school class unless he or she has a child at home sick, in which case this person will bring home breakfast for the rest of the family after scarfing an extra serving in the car.

That is Phase One.

Phase Two is the most important meal of the whole entire week. Write that down. There are varying levels of Phase Two, starting with those families/old people who cop out and go to places like Ruby Tuesday’s after the service. Those people are cheaters, unless they’re going to the “country club”, in which case they’re in the clear and probably the envy of 60% of the women over 50 at their church. The other two categories are the most important culinary institutions in our entire Southern history -the first being The Sunday Dinner and the second being Dinner On The Grounds.

Now, both of these events require hours of planning and husbands being shoved out of kitchens so the womenfolk can focus on their craft but the difference is primarily location.

The Sunday Dinner will always take place in the home of the family’s matriarch, preferably the Grandmother if she is still capable/alive and then the oldest married daughter if that doesn’t pan out. This woman will go to “early church” and come home to begin making The Biggest Meal You’ve Ever Seen in Your Life that will include no less than 4 entrees, 9 side dishes and 4 pies/cakes all made from scratch. This meal is served at precisely 1 p.m. (which is why ministers make it a point to ramble no longer than 12:15 at the very latest, especially if he/she has a tee-time or it is NASCAR season) and nobody is excused from the table until a sufficient dent has made in every dish and every person is incapacitated from overindulgence. The men will be released to the den to watch football/NASCAR/golf/etc. and the women will begrudgingly help with the piles of dishes and leftovers. These leftovers will be consumed from this point until the following Friday.

Dinner On the Grounds, however, is an event that serves as the highlight of many churchgoers’ entire seasons and is never to be taken lightly. Much like Easter or Christmas, these events are often one of few church services that some people attend at all.

FUN FACT: Depending on the region, these are also known as “Covered Dishes” (short for “covered dish dinners) and, when I was younger, I was told by many of my Protestant elders that one could not enter the Kingdom of Heaven without a fresh covered dish in hand.

Anyway. Once (soooometimes twice, if there’s a church holiday) every spring, summer and early-autumn, everyone brings gargantuan portions of their finest dish to the church where they are placed upon football-field-length tables outside for everyone to share. As a rule there will always be no less than two massive bowls of ambrosia salad (always green), 8 boxes of take-out fried chicken (usually from those shunned Easter-and-Christmas-only patrons), 3 red velvet cakes and 27 bowls of potato salad. The rest of the fare is mostly traditional, including green beans simmered with a ham hock, homemade mac and cheese casserole and corn on the cob but there will always be one or two rogue eccentrics that everyone will lean over, squint at and take a teaspoon-sized “No Thank You” serving of. (It’s good manners.)

The Pièce de Résistance of the meal, however, is the highly-anticipated arrival of the Bucket of Homemade Ice Cream. While this legendary highlight of the event could make an appearance at any DotG occasion, it is usually reserved for mid-summer Dinners when the maker has access to fresh fruit - usually peach, sometimes strawberry. The presence of this dish, however, is the turmoil it creates in picnic attendees. Because the bucket of ice cream is always placed at the very end of the buffet with the other desserts, it’s unexpected introduction incites panic in the hearts of diners, as well as an immediate regret of everything he or she spent the last fifteen minutes methodically choosing and placing on his or her two overloaded plates. The next five minutes are spent hurling all these carefully-prepared meal items into one’s maw as quickly as possible, so as to beat everyone to the Hallowed Bucket, in which there will never be any more than 10 servings of half-melted sugar milk.

Phase Three involves complaining about the self-induced discomfort from the day’s gluttonous activity and then wondering what’s left over for a light dinner at 7:30.

The Black Eagle Over The Doorway After extensive research and years of asking around, I still don’t know where this tradition started or what it means other than as a form of patriotism. In older houses (usually rural) these are hung over doorways and garages with absolutely no explanation whatsoever. I think it probably has something to do with the Illuminati.

This concludes the end of the First Installment. Join me next time when I will discuss:

Roadside Produce

How We Deal with “Cold” Weather

Bluegrass Jam Sessions

Front-Porch Sitting

‘Pronoia’ p.271 #1: Have you ever had permission to indulge in a marathon of braggadocio? Have you ever gotten an invitation to bluster on endlessly about your own charms without feeling even a touch of guilt or inhibition? I hereby grant you such a license right now.

To whet you imagination, read an excert from the boast of Eric Baer, a participant in a Brag Therapy session hosted in Milwaukee. “I have opposable thumbs, ” Eric exulted. “I can read. I breathe all the way through the night even though I’m asleep. I have access to emporiums where I can choose from 25 different brands of toilet paper. I know how to turn food into energy. I live where knuckleheads run everything and yet nothing ever blows up.”

NOTE: I’ll be honest, it honestly took me a couple days to muster the gumption to do this exercise. But what the hell? You only live once. Here we go:

I sing rock songs done originally by men so well that I don’t have to pay a bar tab at most karaoke bars, and not just because I don’t drink alcohol. I put brown sugar in my tea which makes it more awesome than usual. I have the prettiest, healthiest, thickest hair of anyone I know - and the color is divine. I was curvy before it was trendy. I can say the alphabet backwards. I have hitchhiker’s thumbs. I have a soul and believe in helping people who can’t help themselves, which means that I may have to sacrifice some of my luxury to do so. Sometimes when I get on a roll I’m funny as shit. I can win debates with about 85% of people and I can level those people with calm, stealthy rhetoric. I’ve sampled more types of chocolate than most people my age. I have unbelievably dark and long lashes. I’ve rung up a $50 tab on sashimi all by myself. I can alternate reading the same 5 books and still remember where I was and what was happening in each of them. I believe in changing energies and the Law of Attraction and perform rituals to do so. I can do the best Ethel Merman impression you’ve ever heard. I can dance like a fiend. I only get about 4 zits every year. I can eat a whole gallon of chocolate ice cream in one sitting. I wrote my first piece of erotica at 12 years old. I can sing every song on Styx’s “Paradise Theatre” and “The Grand Illusion” albums by heart. I’m not allergic to ANYTHING. My child literally uses manners in her sleep because I rock at setting an example. I spoil my friends with presents, even when I can’t afford them. Actually, I love giving people things in general and have been known to make myself broke by making donations to charities, people, bums on the street, etc. I waited until I was totally ready to lose my virginity and, no, I don’t think I was too young and, no, I won’t be upset if my daughter loses hers at the same age. I’m more introspective and proactive about changing my dysfunctions than at least 70% of the rest of the people in the society in which I was raised. My nose piercing has looked the same since the minute it was done - no swelling, no infection, no redness, just adorableness. I’m the biggest ‘Sesame Street’ nerd I know. I have a fantastic alias/nom de plume. I totally pick up on social cues even though I choose to ignore a lot of them. I have five short stories I’ve been working on for a year now. My body magically knew to provide me with too much seratonin and dopamine during my pregnancy as a defense mechanism against my chronic depression. My eyes change color every day. I know how to spell. Every time that I’ve done something that someone else has perceived as psychotic, I’ve been fully aware that that was what was going to happen and I went ahead and did it anyway - sometimes just to freak people out. I’ve never ever cried to get myself out of a ticket. I look adorable in earmuffs, a furry hat, pincurls, dreadlocks, kitty-cat ears and 1950’s style A-line housedresses. I’ve had over 20 diaries and journals since I was 5 and I’ve kept all of them. I know exactly how to be annoying and I can cite the minute it happens with anyone I’m targeting. Oh yeah, and I annoy people I don’t like but have to be around because it’s totally fun and I’m thoroughly amused by it… and because I have to let my inner brat out from time to time. I pwned the 12 Steps and tools of therapy. I’m so irresistable I’ve had to put out not one but two restraining orders on people. I won a multiplication bee when I was in the 3rd grade and, because the teacher preemptively knew I’d win it, she bought me some Sherlock Holmes books ’cause she knew I loved reading them. I’m fully aware when I say things that make me look dysfunctional. I was the only one giggling when I saw both “Titanic” and “The Notebook” (I was dragged) in the theatre. Despite what my high school drama teacher (”facilitator”) said, I got my own paragraph-of-glowing-praise in the public reviews from the only two community theatre productions I’ve ever been in… and in one of those productions I didn’t even speak. I make ideal pancakes. I have over 40 mix tapes and CDs that were made by friends in the last ten years. Oh, and I make arguably better mix CD’s than most people. I saved at least $1,000 by buying all my textbooks from Amazon.com and teaching my family how to do the same. I work every day on self-betterment, even if I don’t have time for it. I didn’t marry an idiot. I have my own desk, my own computer, my own filing cabinet, my own Etsy store, my own three domains and my own two blogs. I get gifts from across the planet every year. I make the most artistically badass scrapbooks I’ve ever seen. I’ve played a 200 year old piano located at Juliette Gordon Low’s house after the tour guide said, “We only let one girl do this every year.” I’m so irresistable I’ve had not one, but three “stalkers” (crazy people who won’t leave me alone and keep calling/harassing me because they’re in love) and have had handfuls of people I’ve heard can’t/won’t/don’t stop talking about me even years after I’ve forgotten them. I live in North Carolina. I know a real enigma. I survived both jr. high and high school. I’m not a bigot. I’m a neo-feminist which means that I can enjoy baking, sewing, knitting, etc without feeling some sort of guilt that I’m backsliding or being a slave to societal patriarchy. I look awesome in red. I also look awesome with purple highlights in my hair. My guitar was given to me by a Grammy winner and Top 40 recording artist. My top half is two sizes smaller than my lower half. I can recite every line in “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” The Movie. I’m no longer envious of, threatened by or hateful to beautiful women (and not just because I’ve embraced the fact that they turn me on.) I have a Pick of Destiny. I get more excited about autumn than most [Christian] kids do about Christmas. I’ve never seen an episode of “The Hills”, “Laguna Beach” or “Jersey Shore”. I won/earned a Girl Scout Silver Award before anyone else in my troop did and I earned every Try-It that Brownie Girl Scouts could in the early 90’s. I’ve traveled abroad and have been to all but 15 of the United States. I’ve learned how to cut needy idiots out of my life once they’ve screwed up too many times instead of staying emotionally invested and draining myself for no reason. I stopped biting my fingernails. I have the cutest child on the planet who also happens to be polite, selfless, sociable and giggly. After years of apologizing and making amends for all those years I was a terrible, awful person, I’m finally in the clear and don’t owe anyone anything [for the moment]!!! I had the best wedding I’ve ever heard of in my entire life.

The Bear has gotten to the age where she’s no longer speaking gibberish, which makes communicating with her a completely different experience. Now I actually have to listen to what it is that she’s saying, translate it into an entire sentence, and respond accordingly. (This is important if I want to encourage her language skills. Which, um, I definitely do.) Often, there are times that she’s been saying something for a very long time that I simply cannot understand until she has the opportunity to physically demonstrate it, which has the potential for hours of frustration when she wants so desperately to get her point across and cannot enunciate whatever it is she desires.

So anyway, I thought I’d include a short list of her most frequent vocabulary uses. Many of these she has been using for about 6 months, but about 60% of them were just developed in the last couple months. Also, when the definition has slashes, it means that this word has multiple definitions that are used contextually. Reeeally keeps me on my toes.

Here are the words that actually mean whole sentences:

“Dosdos” ~ I’d like to go upstairs/downstairs now.
“Ewwwwww!” ~ Someone pooted!/I just pooped!/One of the cats just barfed!
(My hubs had an incident where he was just out of the room a couple days ago and heard one of our cats making the “Guh, guh, guh” pre-vomiting noise. There was a moment of silence and then he heard, “EEEEwwwww!”)
“Sjoos?” ~ May I have some juice?
“Muck” ~ May I have some milk?
“Chose?” ~ May I have some Cheerios?
“Kek!” ~ Someone is having a birthday so there must be cake! (She says this during birthday parties even if there is no cake in view.)
“Tekyu!” ~ Thank you! (I have to brag about this one for a minute because she always says it anytime anyone gives her something. The other day I went in to check on her in bed and I pulled the covers up over her while she was sleeping. Barely conscious, she said, “Tekyuuu.” I was so proud.)
“Bye Bye!” ~ This one seems self-explanatory, but she says this when she wants someone to go away, like a needle-wielding nurse.
“Co! Co!” ~ It’s cold! (She always says this while wrapping her arms around herself and making her jaw chatter, even if she’s just describing ice cream. It’s hilarious.)
“Deddee buck!” ~ I want to look at the wedding-photos book you gave Daddy for your anniversary.
“Waigo?” ~ Where did it go? (This is almost always prefaced with a gasp and a palms-up shrug.)
“Cuws” ~ I want to color now.
“Seet seet!” ~ Have a seat next to me.
“Huuuuug.” ~ Pick me up and hold me. I don’t feel well or am tired but won’t admit that. I just want mommy. (Admittedly my favorite.)

Because we’ve been stuck in the house battling bronchitis and lethargy-inducing fevers for the last week, we’ve been subjecting ourselves to a lot of movies. She only has about five she wants to watch ::sigh:: ad naaauseum. Here’s the list:

“Teek!” ~ The Tinkerbell movie or its sequel. She MUST wear her wings (”Weegs!” or “Veegs!” or “Sfy”) and skirt every time we run these movies.
“Pooh” or “Piggit” or “Teega” or “Rabbie” ~ The Pooh Movie
“Doggies” ~ Lady and the Tramp
“Muwmuw” ~ The Little Mermaid (although this isn’t her favorite, much to my chagrin)
“RAAAR!” ~ Monsters, Inc.
“Sessie” ~ Sesame Street OR the “Bare Necessities” Sing Along Songs DVD
“Miggie” ~ The godawful “Disneyland Fun” Sing Along Songs DVD featuring Mickey Mouse
“Piggie” ~ The Muppet Show. I’ll discuss it more later, but “piggie” actually has multiple meanings, which I think is pretty cool.

And then here are just the basics:

“RAAR!” ~ Monster/dragon/dinosaur. (She’s not afraid of any of these. Also, when little boys have tried to jump out and scare her with roars on playdates she giggles at them and then runs after them, doing the same. Awe. Some.)
“Ticky ticky!” ~ Tickles
“Achoos” ~ Tissues (this is one we didn’t teach her but she just started identifying on her own.)
“Cowds” ~ Clouds. (Another we didn’t teach her.)
“Ah-pay” ~ Airplane
“Hawsie” ~ Horsie(s)
“Cows” ~ Cow(s)
“Buds” ~ Bird(s)
“Caw” ~ Car
“Tuck” ~ Truck
“Piggies” ~ Toes/Pigs/Miss Piggy.
“Toes” ~ Toes (she actually recognizes that there are two words for toes and that one is a colloquialism! Coool!)
“POOPP!” ~ Poop. (This is the one word she overenunciates every time. Loudly.)
“Cowck” ~ Clock. (It sounds filthy when she says it out loud. We must remedy this.)
“Cackee”/”Gaggee” ~ Cookie
“Schoo-choo” ~ train
“Kack! Kack!” or “Dack!” ~ duck/goose/swan
“Uggut” ~ yogurt
“Chickychicky”/”Bok!Bok!” ~ Chickens (this is always accompanied with bent-elbow flapping gestures)

I could ramble on for a while about basic vocab, but I think after a while it starts to get mundane (”Doew” = “door”, etc.) But that’s what I have for now. And that’s pretty much all the language I get on an average day. I wish there was a device that people could wear that would translate everything everyone else said into basic toddler language so I could see how they’d do after a week of that. I’m sure their nerves would be as frayed and their sanity as wrecked as mine after just a couple days.

For Christmas and her birthday, the Bear got a tiny tutu and toddler-sized fairy wings from different relatives that just happen to match. Because she’s been sick all week and the weather has been crappy, all she’s wanted to do is wear those two things over her clothes and watch “Tinkerbell” on repeat. Okay, granted it’s pretty adorable, especially when Selena Gomez kicks in with the theme song during the credits and I’m ordered to “Dance! Dance!” along with the tiny spinning blonde fairy in my den. It’s magical and cute and makes me gush over with happy feelings about being a mom and having a little girl and all that mushy gunk I’d hate on anyone else.

However, the cuteness of her attire is wreaking havoc on my already-weak disciplinary resolve. It’s hard enough for me to tell her “No” or to take her away from potentially hazardous things she desperately wants to be entangled in, but this week it’s been particularly difficult, especially when I try to turn off “Tink! Tink!” and get her to do something other than staying glued to the television.

And this week I learned that I’ve never felt like more of a monster than when I have to make a tiny baby fairy cry.

::sigh::

If it wasn’t so pitiful it’d be hilarious.

Dear Facebook Friends,

Look, I’m not trying to tell you how to run your profile or life in general, but I feel like there are a few social cues to which you’re just not savvy yet, that are really costing you some credibility points. And, since you’ve decided to make these sort of gestures in front of a rather large audience of people you actually know, I thought you may want to be made aware of what your actions are saying. Because I care about you and the public persona you seem to be unaware that you’re maintaining.

Just a couple things:

1) Changing your Relationship Status more than twice a month makes you look insane/unstable/desperate/sad.

We honestly don’t care what the reasoning is behind it, but if you go from “Married” to “Single” to “It’s Complicated” in the course of two weeks, you’re not only going to look unstable but increasingly desperate for attention with every status update. Why on earth would you want everyone you know that you and your significant other are in the middle of a love/hate battle that you can’t seem to walk away from long enough to catch your breath? The answer here is obvious with the amount of “Are you okaaaay?”s and “If you need to talk, I’m here”s that are routinely plastered all over your walls as you cycle through the relationship options. While these people may honestly care about you and your thread-dangling relationship, eventually they’re going to start seeing you as a clamoring charity case, if they haven’t already.

After a while, everyone’s going to start sympathizing with the other party, regardless of their relationship to you, much like if you’re the type to obsessively call an ex and then wonder why he/she’s not sprinting back to you. Dignity has a lot to do with attractiveness, you know. Unless you’re into dating people without standards.

Maybe you should consider saving yourself a little public humiliation for a change. Seriously. Breaking up with someone is hard enough (not to mention doing it three times a month) but broadcasting it to the world isn’t going to make it any better on your self-esteem. It’s really, truly not going to hurt any of us if we don’t know that you and this demon/saint you’re remaining in the vicinity of are taking yet another break for whatever reason. And maybe not announcing to the world that your relationship is in turmoil over and over would give you the self-respect to look at the whole thing objectively for a change.

If this applies to you, perhaps you should consider not publicly mentioning your relationship status unless there’s legal documentation to validate your claim. It’s really for your own good.

2) “It’s Complicated” doesn’t mean anything other than “Bad”*

I’m going to be frank here. Nobody, except for the very close friends that you’d still have if Facebook never existed, cares about your relationship’s backstory. Not anyone. And, again, why would you want to publicly advertise that shit’s going down in whatever makeshift relationship you have? All the options are pretty cut-and-dry, but if there’s not one that fits your immediate case YOU DO HAVE THE OPTION OF LEAVING IT BLANK.

This just goes back to self-respect, folks. The thing about “It’s Complicated” is that it really leaves the door wide open for assumptions. For example, if you’ve been married for a few years and now you’re suddenly in “It’s Complicated”ville, guess what? Now we’re all sitting around going, “Affair? Separation? Murder? Bestial Love Triangle?” which is honestly none of our business in the first place. HOWEVER, by you putting it out there, you’re inviting us to make it our business, get it? And, really, when it comes to people going a-Facebooking, there’s nothing but time for judgment and assumptions. I’d venture to say that’s about 65% of what makes it so much fun. (And if you’re of the “I don’t care what people think” variety, then why are you posting something so private as your relationship status at all?)

All we want, as friends-who-are-good-enough-for-Facebook-but-not-enough-to-confide-in-via-phone-or-email-or-actual-interaction, is for you to tell us when you’re “In a Relationship” and then give us a link to that person’s profile so we can immediately go over and judge them based on their appearance and Interests. That cannot be too much to ask.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Gleefully “Married”,
Castallare

* Sincere thanks to the lovely and brilliant Ms. Jennifer Beane for mentioning this obvious truth and causing me to snort Juicy Juice through my nose while we were texting gossip back and forth for an hour.