Southern Legitimacy Statement: A quarter-century ago, I rode my motorcycle south and bought a pickup truck. It and I are now covered in rust. Imperfect I wandered Manhattan’s East Side that night with my nerdy left-back classmate Aaron Rabitcheff, wishing I had female companionship instead — someone who would squint…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in Missouri and now live (very, very) close to Atlanta. With the exception of college, I have spent my entire life in the South. Mimi Mimi I met Mimi when I was almost 14.  I fell for her instantly.  Her eyes were…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in the southwestern corner of Virginia and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I currently reside in Wilmington, North Carolina. My father’s businesses were always headquartered in southwest Virginia. A Brief Memoir of an East Coast Entrepreneur: How Past Endeavors Inform Future Business Dreams My father,…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I live in South Scottsdale, which is south of Old Town Scottsdale, so it’s not the city you think of when you think of Scottsdale, AZ. I’m from a place called St. Joseph, Missouri, which is south of the plains but north of the Ozarks. My grandfather…

My Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in southwest Florida where crocodiles living in the golf course lake routinely consumed small dogs whole. Cultural Debts I hadn’t thought of Jimmy Buffett for twenty years when, in the span of a week, he showed up three times: first in a news…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: My earliest memories were of living in a small coal-mining “company house” near Shinnston West Virginia, and of using the two-holer out back. The aunt who raised me eventually moved the family to a small enclave of West Virginia ex-pats in southeastern Ohio, across the river from…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: As to Southern Legitimacy, in my day job as an archaeologist, I have dug holes and recovered history from throughout the Southeast. I have investigated the defining site types of the region, including whiskey stills, kilns where alkaline-glazed pottery was made, a 6-foot thick midden of oyster…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in New York with dyed-in-the wool Southern parents. They arrived in the city during The Depression determined “to make it,” as my father said, and they did. But they brought along with them the Southern rulebook of “shoulds” and expectations, which I called The…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in the South and left it vowing never to return. Never say never. I came back. Sure I don’t like grits or football, but there’s something about the South that gets into your blood. I used to say I was from the South…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am as Southern as grits, biscuits, and gravy, having the double blessing of being brought into this world in the great state of Georgia (Atlanta to be precise) and having my raising in the Volunteer State of Tennessee. I have been educated here and have worked…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am a Mississippian, born in the Northern Hills and currently living in the flatlands of the Delta. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a rural community where I learned the value of family, faith, and food, even if I didn’t know to appreciate these…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am as Southern as grits, biscuits, and gravy, having the double blessing of being brought into this world in the great state of Georgia (Atlanta to be precise) and having my raising in the Volunteer State of Tennessee. I have been educated here and have worked…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in Missouri and now live (very, very) close to Atlanta. With the exception of college, I have spent my entire life in the South. My Insurance Policy From 1997 to 2002, I taught members of industrial fire brigades from Oklahoma to Maine…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: After my discharge from the US Army 20 years ago, I planted my roots in Fort Worth, Texas. Since moving here, I have become a huge fan of high school football, pickup trucks, mesquite wood smoke, and the 5 basic food groups (BBQ brisket, tacos, chicken fried…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Of course, it’s Southern and because I’ve been writing in the South and about the South for several decades, I think I’m a Southerner. Last year, I begged my wife to stop along I-75 in Southern Georgia, so I could pick up a prosthetic leg someone had…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I know that a Moon Pie is best served heated from the oven, is eaten with a knife and a fork, and is served on a dessert plate passed down from your great-grandmother who never learned any of the children’s names and referred to you strictly as…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in Missouri and now live (very, very) close to Atlanta. With the exception of college, I have spent my entire life in the South. My Insurance Policy From 1997 to 2002, I taught members of industrial fire brigades from Oklahoma to Maine…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Skinny, straight-haired, fishing for antlions in the dry dust of Faulkner’s tool shed at Roanoke. Waiting, watching the evening in the branches of tall magnolias. I am there in 2004, as the cicadas, after seventeen years of silence, emerge and turn the state into a hum. I…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Elizabeth Byard grew up in Arkansas but currently lives in rural Oklahoma with her husband, cats and llamas. They are in the final stages of becoming licensed foster parents. Lucky Girl I’ve come to terms with a lot of things in my life. I will never be…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: We were a prototypical southern nuclear family. My Papaw came up in the Great Smokey Mountains, near Farner Tennessee and Cherokee North Carolina. When he was nine, he lost track of the time one summer evening, squirrel hunting up on the mountain, and he avoided a sound…

My Southern Legitimacy statement says I have been printed in North Carolina, baby-sat there, and trained for the military with Tennessee’s 278th Regiment (activated for Korean encounter) at Fort Devens, MA. Decision Borne by April Water I was fishing off the bridge over the Ipswich River, a few hundred yards…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Since my last Dead Mule submission, I’ve only grown more southern, moving south by 7 degrees of latitude to the Sunshine State, which, incidentally, is where I was born. A North Carolina resident for almost 20 years, I maintain a personal map of all the Bojangles in…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Born in the hill country of northeast Mississippi, educated at Mississippi State University and Mississippi University for Women, living just outside the state capital of Jackson, Mississippi–Julie Whitehead is about as Mississippi as it gets. Above My Raising I came from white trash in north Mississippi.  I…

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born and raised in Florida and am still living here, two miles from Georgia. My dad and grandparents were also native Floridians, and I can’t find an ancestor who was born or lived north of the Mason-Dixon line. Mom was born in southern Georgia and crossed…