Truly Southern

Truly Southern

It’s not the things you see with your eyes. It’s not just the majestic oaks covered in swags of Spanish moss, or winding roads which ease up to graceful columned mansions. It’s more than funny accents and the twisted relationships you see in the movies; more than black oppression, more than cotton fields; more than back water towns filled with uneducated derelicts. It’s a cry in your mind which keeps you tied to the salt marshes, a burning eased by the feel of plough mud; an ache when you go away which might only be soothed by the smell of Jessamine. Its Sunday mornin’ in church followed by dinner at Mama’s; oyster roasts and pig-pickin’s; greens and Hoppin’ John. It’s saying, “yes ma’am” and “no, sir” and never arguing with someone whose opinion you don’t respect.

Truly southern is seeing your family name in a history book, on a street sign, or a monument or a town. It’s knowing that good manners, like good china, are to be taken out and used every day. Truly southern is walking from the porch into the sunlight and feeling the air bead up on your brow. It’s knowing that conversation with the mayor can be a blood-sport and your neighbor’s wife has a tongue sharp enough to trim the hedge. Truly Southern is feeling the scraw of the jay before you hear it. It’s having a memory that involves a hunting dog and knowing how to boil peanuts and cook grits.

Geographically speaking, truly southern might be Charleston or Savannah. Plainly speaking, it’s the upper right corner of your soul.