Lori Blake: “To a Morning Glory”
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
I was born in North Carolina. My first home was a 12’ X 48’ mobile home situated on a red clay patch that had once been a watermelon field. I lived a free range childhood, spending many a day avoiding summer heat by hiding deep in the woods, catching crayfish and minnows in the creek, observing termites on old logs, or trying to push my brothers into the creek beside of the big rock we were convinced housed a snake. We roamed in a pack, which probably explains the lack of wildlife sightings during my childhood years. Imagine ten children running barefoot down a trail their feet knew by heart, knowing just when to jump to clear the old hog fence now hidden by vines. We ruled the woods, and thought we ruled the world! It was not until many years had passed that I would realize how rare that kind of freedom really is.
It was not until I moved to Europe in the early 1990’s (my husband was Army) that I realized that 1) I did indeed have a Southern accent 2) Not everyone puts slaw on a hot dog and 3) a toboggan is a sled, not a hat! Well, who knew? My hiatus from the south was brief, and I am now back to stay. While I love to travel, I will always come home to where the dirt is orange, the tea is sweet, and dead mules are mourned.
Phillip Barron: “omnimpotence”
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
A southerner — born and raised in the American South and lived in South America — Phillip Barron stays in northern California, where he works in the digital humanities. He previously taught philosophy at the Chapel Hill and Greensboro campuses of the University of North Carolina.
Kathleen Kirk: “The Last Word”
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
I was born in Oklahoma and then lived in Florida from infancy to age 6 and went to kindergarten during the Cuban missile crisis and ate sugar cubes with polio vaccine in them. My favorite foods as a child were watermelon and hushpuppies. (Why aren’t hushpuppies on your list?) I also sucked on sugar cane and ate boiled peanuts. Childhood is all about food, right?
Theresa Corbin: “The Climb Down”
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
I am a map of all colonies passed in Louisiana. Not the Louisiana we know today, but the big boot that once stomped it’s splendor over one third of our great country. My features mix Spanish settlers and French revolutionaries with a generous pinch of aboriginal Americans and an African essence that make all these traits given to me decidedly creole. But more than that, I have an inexplicable lust for all things spicy. I can’t make my feet still at the sound of a drum carrying a rhythm. My grandfather’s blacksmithing art was commissioned in the building of the bird cages at the Audubon Zoo. I am deeply offended by improper nomenclature of my favorite native dish, it’s not crayfish! Those native neighbors of New Orleans who dug up the mudbugs’ mud piles in their backyards as kids and suck the flavors from their deliciously stewed skulls call them crawfish. My first trip north of the line of Mason Dixon was not until I was sixteen. I must have brought the heat with me because it was the worst heat wave that Michigan had ever seen when I arrived that July. Welcome to my world, I thought. I have lived through hurricane after hurricane (and I’m not talking about the libation sold on Bourbon St), and humid hot summer (of swimming and sipping tea) after humid hot summer (of slip and slides and hiding in the shade of a tree). And for all this I carry the badge of Southerner.
Dempsey D. Miles: “Idle”
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
Honeysuckles, Chopped Pork BBQ and Muscadine Wine
I remember walking from my grand mama’s house with my brother. We’d walkthrough the lane that was in truth a two way, one way street. I mean the signs said one way but cars went both ways and nobody seemed to mind because everybody in Starkville, Mississippi knew that the one way was a two way. The lane contained the most magical delights almost year round. There were pecan trees, peach trees, pear trees, and a long row of sugary sweet honeysuckle vines; and that was just on one side of the road. We never seemed to mind it was all on somebody else’s property. I am sure they didn’t mind sharing with all the kids who walked that lane.
My Uncle Johnny barbequed pork almost year round, no matter the season, in every type of weather. He cooked whole hogs for other folk’s barbeques and party’s. He owned a little farm, with a cinder block smoke pit in the rear. He would slow cook the hogs for long hours then once the meat cooled he would chop it up, adding grand mamma’s secret vinegar and tomato based spicy sauce. The kids made sure to hang around near enough to be unofficial, official tasters. As much as we tasted it was a wonder there was enough hog left to serve at the party. That chopped barbeque served on white bread with homemade potato salad and collard greens was always a show stopper. Add a little sweet tea, or an ice cold Budweiser, and you were in it to win it!
My other Uncle, on my Momma side liked to brew his own “shine”. That’s moonshine to everyone above the Mason-Dixon Line. He was a bit of a local legend in his day known for his jovial nature and quality of his shine. He even measured a man’s worth in increments of shine. For example, if he said a man wasn’t “worth a fifty cent shot” then you knew that person to be of low character. And who are better judges of character than shine drinking Baptist in Mississippi? My favorite was his muscadine flavored wine. He’d pay his nieces and nephews to collect ripe muscadines by the brown paper bag full; two dollars a bag, good money back in the day. He’d throw the bags in the back of his old Chevy truck and disappear off to his secret place to brew his wine. We children would always be allowed a good nip during funerals, weddings, holidays, are whenever somebody left a jug unattended and in our reach. It was always sweet going down with just the right amount of burn in the throat.
Now you tell me; ain’t I southern enough?
Works by some old friends and a few new ones
I know, I know, I promised fiction and essays on the 15th and didn’t deliver. That’s pretty much what everyone expects, isn’t it — me being a day late and a dollar short? Oh well. The wait was worth it,...
Heat by Dempsey Miles
Southern Legitimacy Statement
Honeysuckles, Chopped Pork BBQ and Muscadine Wine
I remember walking from my grand mama’s house with my brother. We’d walkthrough the lane that was in truth a two way, one way street. I mean the signs said one way but cars went both ways and nobody seemed to mind because everybody in Starkville, Mississippi knew that the one way was a two way. The lane contained the most magical delights almost year round. There were pecan trees, peach trees, pear trees, and a long row of sugary sweet honeysuckle vines; and that was just on one side of the road. We never seemed to mind it was all on somebody else’s property. I am sure they didn’t mind sharing with all the kids who walked that lane.
My Uncle Johnny barbequed pork almost year round, no matter the season, in every type of weather. He cooked whole hogs for other folk’s barbeques and party’s. He owned a little farm, with a cinder block smoke pit in the rear. He would slow cook the hogs for long hours then once the meat cooled he would chop it up, adding grand mamma’s secret vinegar and tomato based spicy sauce. The kids made sure to hang around near enough to be unofficial, official tasters. As much as we tasted it was a wonder there was enough hog left to serve at the party. That chopped barbeque served on white bread with homemade potato salad and collard greens was always a show stopper. Add a little sweet tea, or an ice cold Budweiser, and you were in it to win it!
A Mule’s Gotta’ Die by Molly Dugger Brennan
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Southern Legitimacy Statement: My family, having disappointed everyone on the European continent, arrived on the shores of Virginia in the early 1700s to start anew. Being too lazy to pack for another big move, we have stayed in Virginia ever since and made the best of it. I live in the Shenandoah Valley with my husband and the trifecta of Southern legitimacy: a porch, a pack of dogs, and pie.
First Hunting Trip by Berrien Henderson
Southern Legitimacy Statement (*as if this essay needs one, the title is the SLS, don't you think?) Although my son and I didn’t get to shoot any squirrel, the lesson, the bonding, nor the experience was lost on my little boy and me. Plus, there's the bonus of its being a rather traditional Southern/rural outing.
Public Domain by Glenda Beall
The Southern Legitimacy Statement of Glenda C. Beall.
Having grown up on a farm in south Georgia, I learned to drive a tractor when I was six. At fourteen, I passed my daddy’s driving test, when I conquered the red mud-rutted road to our house. My favorite toys were Daddy’s Bull Durham bags and empty matchboxes. I grew up on sweet iced tea, fresh yard eggs, grits, homemade biscuits and Mayhaw jelly. My home is still in the south, but in the mountains now. And folks here sell yard eggs, put up vegetables in the summer, and help out their neighbors when they can.
I can’t imagine living anywhere else.
Just Like His Daddy by C. Ciccozzi
Southern Legitimacy Statement
My parents were born in the south. Colloquialisms are so ingrained in me that when I repeat them, people in the western states look at me like I’ve got a caterpillar perched on my nose. I don’t think I’ve pronounced the ‘g’ on any word ending with ‘ing’ since I learned how to talk. I say pillas instead of pillows and windas … well, you get the idea. My brother taught me how to catch crawdads in a can when we were kids. He also shot me in the face with his BB gun. Ouch!
The Recidivist by John Branscum
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
My father was possessed by a trailer. My sister gave into the influence of a creek full of evil spirits housed in wrecked cars. I myself am unduly vulnerable to the influence of heavy metal and hip-hop. I wear my shirt open two buttons – not on purpose but because this is simply the kind of animal I am. I partially grew up in a trailer in Big Flat Arkansas, without electricity, that smelled kind of funny because of the dead salamanders. I almost fell over in the outhouse while simultaneously balancing on the one plank that wasn’t rotten and taking a crap. I had few friends as a teenager in Kentucky. And the ones I did have were mostly dogs and trees. I’ve killed a lot of things and felt bad about it, but can’t figure out any other way to live.
The Preacherman by Hannah Spicer
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I proudly claim Southwest Virginia as my home. I grew up in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains with three brothers. My childhood was spent roaming through the woods, choppin' off roosters' heads (Mom said we couldn't have more than one rooster at a time), and going to school. When I was fourteen, my daddy taught me how to drive a tractor. When I was fifteen, my little brother taught me how to shoot a gun (only because them darn coyotes kept snatchin' the baby cows - I would not have touched a gun otherwise).
As I grew older, people seemed to think that these things were something to be ashamed 'bout. I tried to write things that didn't quite sound like me, but were about city people. I don't know a darn thing about city people, except what I read in books. Therefore, my writing wasn't that great. Then, I started writing about what I know - country people, and my writing sounded pretty good.
I say, leave the city writin' for those that live in the city. Me? I am goin' to write about the country and my beloved Appalachian Mountains.
Poetry
Essays
