Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Another year gone
Seems like I just fall further and further behind in my writing. I always have the best excuses! This time, we've moved further south - into a home and location that bring us both great happiness. It is good.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
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.
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.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Twenty-Three Things
Though I about two years behind, I've decided to try the "Twenty-Three Things" that Neflin is promoting. Twenty-three separate mind-expanding, technological chapters that I've missed in my education. Blogging in one. Somewhere I have the blog started that Brookie and I discussed last year. She went on with out me, and now it is time for me to force myself to write something every day. If I am ever going to complete my SFD, then I have to develop some discipline. It is time.
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