The "Southern" in Me

Yes ma'am. No ma'am. Amen. Thank you. Pass the gravy. Stay out of that mud. Fishing. Fried squash. Grits. Magnolia trees. Red dirt. No sir. You're welcome. Praise Jesus.

Manners, religion, food, and the environment that surrounds me has shaped me and formed me into the person I am. From the food I eat to the way I talk, my friends all lovingly refer to me as southern. It's a heritage I'm proud of (although I'm sure my ancestors are more of the simple farmer as opposed to the antebellum). My mama and daddy taught me manners and how to be polite. I know when to say excuse me, thank you, yes ma'am, no ma'am, and how to not chew with my mouth open. I know to hold the door for the elderly and to always treat those older than me with the utmost respect, after all, they've been here longer and probably know more. I've been raised in wooden pews with Dolly Parton dresses my Mama fought me into for years. I've been fishing and I can fry chicken. I know exactly what a Steel Magnolia is and I've been lucky enough to know a few. Yeah, I guess my life is pretty Southern fried.

When I think about the south, I don't think about the sprawling metropolitan area of Atlanta. I don't even consider the smog and dirt and the places where you can't see the stars for the city lights. I think about riding across Taylor's Ridge, with the windows rolled all the way down, and the radio turned way up. I think about sweet tea and my mama's pound cake. I remember the creek at my Mema's where I used to shed my socks and shoes in the summer and find cool relief from the July sun. It's a little bitty place where everybody knows my name, phone number, birthday, and how many times I've sneezed that day. It's not that anybody means anything by it, there's just not much else to do. The south is a rock house on a hill with a pond behind it and a yellow lab stretched out on the front porch, a lab named Purot(like the presidential candidate), a lab my daddy thought was dumb because it ran through screen doors and a lab my mama loved because her kids could ride it like a horse and it loved them anyways. It's stopping when you see a funeral processional and turning down your radio because it's respectful. My south is not being afraid at night when I have to run to Wal Mart. It's having the love of an entire family surround you, even when you've screwed up but good. The south is my great grandmother, with her snow white hair, napping in her chair on the screened in back porch. It's my Mema's potato salad and my Grandma's quilts. It's my Papa's old green Ford and snuff. It's where I'm home.

I'm not naive enough to believe that the south doesn't have it's problems, it's limits, it's issues that should be worked out. I'm wise enough, however, to know that to change some of those things is to change what the South is. Even as it progressively moves forward, it stays where it's at. It's like a good recipe, you don't add extra flour to chocolate chip cookies, it would make them hard. All you can do is add chocolate chips and make them a little sweeter. The south will never rise again and it will never be a perfect place for some. But, it's a quaint little reminder that while some things change, other things always stay the same. And sometimes, that's perfectly alright.