Confessions of a failed Southern gentleman, Part I: (Agri)culture shock

If there were a savings and loan for Southern culture--a formal one with a charter and corporate headquarters in some high-rise in Midtown Atlanta, one where you could bank your Southerness and draw credit on it as you needed to--I have a strong suspicion that my Thrifty Dixie bank account would have been depleted years ago.

You see, among Southern purists--and the purity of the Southern race has been, shall we say, an issue, over the years--I have some deposits in my account, but, well, half of it's Confederate currency and half of it's Union. After all, I am the product of a mixed marriage--my mother being from North Carolina, and my father, from Kentucky, a bipolar border state. Some Kentuckians were slave-owners, and some Kentuckians wanted to preserve the Union and avoid the U.S. Civil War. And some of those Kentuckians were one and the same, slave-owners and Union-preservers.

Like Kentucky itself, my Dad's ancestors seemed pretty conflicted over the war. If the genealogical searches I've done are to be believed, my Dad's people were slave owners at some point in their history, at least in the 1600s and 1700s, when they were living in North Carolina and Virginia, before they emigrated to Kentucky. Not something I take pride in, mind you, but there you have it.

There's also the unauthenticated family lore that one family member during the war served as a spy for the Union against the Confederacy and as a counter-spy for the Confederacy against the Union. Props for ballsiness, uncle.

While I know less about my mother's people, I think it's safe to say that landlocked as they were between those two "mountains of conceit"--Virginia and South Carolina--the North Carolina contingent wasn't likely to register as conscientious objectors or start up a Freedmen's Bureau, offering up to their former charges (if they had any, and I'm assuming they followed a crowd as well as anyone) 40 acres of venus flytrap-infested property and a mule . . . deer.

I do know of one direct ancestor who served during the war, though--my great grandfather on my Dad's side, who fought at the Battle of Shiloh, Tennessee, in April 1862. But he fought with Union forces under the command of Ulysses S. Grant. Lord, the shame. Thus, I rather suspect that neither the Sons nor the Daughters of the Confederacy will be calling upon me to join their ranks anytime soon.

I have other credits and debits to my account, the fact that my Dad was in the military himself, certainly a longstanding tradition in some Southern families (+1). But being a military family means that you're viewed as something of an interloper wherever you live in the South. You're not of the place (-2), even if you spent all but a year-and-a-half of your life in that place. At the worst of times, the term "military trash" gets bandied about (-5), which is pretty funny when you think how anyone who would actually refer to someone else in those terms is perhaps the trashiest of us all.

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There's an expression in the South that describes this peculiar institution of Southern authenticity: "Just 'cause your cat has kittens in the oven doesn't mean you call 'em biscuits."

Thus, we have lots of "New Southerners" with Chicago accents inhabiting Dekalb and Fulton counties. And we have Floridians, which no one can really explain. (Sorry, Sophia!)

But I would argue that I'm a full-fledged, fully baked biscuit. I have a number of deposits in my Southern street cred ledger. For example . . .

• I have fond memories of James "Jim Dandy" Mangrum and Ruby Starr from Black Oak Arkansas performing "Jim Dandy" on late night TV in the early '70s. In hot pants, platforms, and crazy red hair, Ruby (herself a Southern interloper originally hailing from--good golly, man--Toledo, Ohio) would belt out "Go, Jim Dandy, Goooooooo!" in her gutsy growl. Jim Dandy would strut the stage like an early, credible version of David Lee Roth, long-locked, shirtless, and painted into skin white tights, his, erm, member leaving an indelible impression on the front of his pants--as well as on my pubescent mind. Thanks for the memories, Jim.
• I grew up saying all sorts of weird things--like "housinary" (for subdivision or "housing area") and "ice taters" (for "Irish potatoes"), corruptions of standard English that are best explained in a separate post. I also swanned and swannied--or at least heard people swan and swanny--growing up, terms that do make an appearance in the Oxford English Dictionary. I do declare.
• Oh, and those little crackers you get six to a pack, eight on special, produced by Lance out of Charlotte? I grew up calling them "nabs." They are great with a Pepsi, a Sundrop, or even a Cheerwine.
• I don't smoke because I know how hot, sticky, gummy, and disgusting a tobacco field is. I know what a tobacco worm looks like, too. Trust me, this is one worm that even chugging an entire bottle of mezcal won't help you swallow.
• We carried a towel with a "Rebel" flag design to the beach every summer and never saw a problem with it. Pride in being a Southerner, even a white Southerner, doesn't mean you want to oppress African Americans. I'm not saying I'd do it again, knowing how strongly the image offends some people, but it is possible for a symbol to mean two different things to two different people. Still, if some people equate the stars and bars with the swastika, my life will be full enough without having the image of that flag on a beach towel or flying overhead at a Southern statehouse.
• I've been to a hog killin' and a pig pickin', and I don't feel particularly conflicted at the thought of either--even if my pet pig as a child (unimaginatively named Arnold after the porker from Green Acres, but the part you should focus on is that I had a pet pig at all) ended up as bacon, sausage, ham, etc. In fact, as a child, I was enchanted by the dancing pigs in the Frosty Morn' commercials. "Sing it over and over and over again, Frosty Morn . . . ." Those little piggies were delicious! As god as my witness, I can't help but believe that meat has a place at the top, middle, and bottom of the food pyramid.
• I have a distinct memory of staying with my grandparents on their farm one summer and having to rush to the hospital when my grandmother grew ill one night, only to realize that I had forgotten to pack any shoes for the trip. Speaking of trash, I never have I felt more PWT (po' white trash) in my life than at that moment, standing in the waiting room in a shirt, jeans, and my green-bottomed, grass-stained feet.
• When I say I'm ill, I might need a doctor but chances are I don't. What I mean is that I need you to get the hell out of my face. "The way that Jerry Falwell uses God as a billy club. He makes me so ill!"

So I have my moments, credits to that bank account. Nonetheless, I suspect I'm something of a disappointment as a Southerner, too. For every credit, there's a debit--or even a full-on, red-ink, cain't get nuthin' on account 'cause I'm a no-account debt--in the opposing column.

• I cannot imagine owning a truck. Ever. I can understand the need to be able to haul stuff from time to time, but the Mini Cooper and the Toyota Prius do offer a hatchback model.
• I don't like sweet tea anymore. I tend to drink Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi these days. In restaurants, I forget to ask for iced tea sometimes. When I do, I put Splenda or Equal in it, rather than sugar. (Sugar doesn't desolve in iced tea, just settles at the bottom of the glass. Plus Splenda has fewer calories.)
• I can never imagine going to a performance by a comic who calls himself "Tater Salad."
• I have only three country albums in my collection of nearly a thousand CDs. They are as follows: Patsy Cline's Greatest Hits, Rosanne Cash's Seven Year Ache, and a compilation entitled, appropriately enough, The Queens of Country. You can't go wrong with Dolly Parton's "Jolene" or Jeannie C. Reilly's "Harper Valley P.T.A." You can keep Faith Hill and Reba, thanks all the same. I would like to own Van Lear Rose by Loretta Lynn or that last album by Johnny Cash, the one featuring Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt," if anyone out there needs an idea for a birthday gift for me . . . .
• I have a strong aversion to organized religion of any kind. In fact, I have a strong aversion to disorganized religion, as well. I'm not much of anything, really--except, not an atheist. Thanks to my parents and sibs, I have a pretty good moral compass, if I do say so. I don't need an organized or disorganized body of anything telling me how to behave. I don't need the threat of fire and brimstone to keep me on the straight and narrow. I don't need Jot the Dot.
• I love soul music from the '60s and '70s. However, I could never imagine wearing a t-shirt that proclaims I'm a member of the Soul Patrol. I could never imagine seriously telling anyone that I'm 29 again, either.
• I'm convinced that nouveau-riche Atlanta is one of the portals to Hades.

So that makes me overdrawn, cashed out, busted, flat broke, destitute, and out of checks--plus the darn teller machine just ate my ATM card to boot--at Southern Savings and Loan.