The Phantom Truck by strannikov
Am I Southern? You tell me.
I eat sushi, not fried seafood. I don’t drink bourbon; I drink unsweetened tea.
I was born and raised in South Carolina but graduated from the University of Mississippi.
A paternal great-great-great grandfather was a Confederate combatant at the Second Battle of Manassas and died from his wounds months after that illustrious victory; to compensate for misgivings about the prudence of secession in 1860, I argue that secession was undertaken at least thirty years too late to avert war or to avoid losing one.
My grandfather and my father were both tobacco farmers. I am no tobacco farmer and do not smoke or chew tobacco, or dip snuff. I am no farmer, period.
I was raised on Pepsi but have not had a twelve-ounce serving in years or even decades. I can eat boiled peanuts but do not commonly seek them out. The odor of Coca-Cola sickens me.
My taste in barbeque veers toward the tomatoey-peppery-vinegary, although I will sample the mustardy varieties for a change of pace. I restrict barbeque consumption to the months between October and March. Ounce for ounce and gram for gram, I eat more pasta in a year than pork.
Avidly, I have read Cousin Flannery; but to date I’ve not read one line of Eudora. I’ve paid my respects at Faulkner’s grave but have never visited Macon to pay respects to Duane Allman and Berry Oakley.
I do not own or drive a pick-up truck, with or without gun rack, with or without mud flaps, with or without Confederate emblems.
I once owned Marshall Tucker albums but can’t even name a tune by Hootie and the Blowfish.
I disagree with James L. Petigru, Esq.: South Carolina is large enough to qualify as a republic and if anything is too small to be a serviceable insane asylum.
Fields White With Harvest by Sylvie Galloway
Southern Legitimacy Statement
I am certainly what you would call a southern woman. I grew up in East Tennessee, married then moved to the Western North Carolina mountains then moved even further south to the upstate of South Carolina. Now divorced, I attend a small southern woman’s college while wading hip deep through the world of perm rods, hair spray and tease combs. Hairdressing keeps the mortgage payments current, and my asthma doctor's budget in the black.
I live in a world where ya'll is a token word in most conversations, ice tea is strong and harmful to one's pancreas and grits is considered one of the four essential food groups. I also live in a world, that although I've been called a southern gal all my life, I don't always feel like I fit in. Maybe that's from being nerdy, somewhat bookish, and exhibiting no real talent or interest for sports of any kind, fishing, hunting, beauty contesting, baton twirling, clogging, shagging, or the baking or the frying of southern culinary delights. I also couldn't tell you who is in the running for this year's NASCAR driver of the year award if my life depended on it.
But where else but here in the south can you get peaches and strawberries picked fresh that morning? Where else does the hint of snow send two thirds of the county scrambling to the grocery for a week of supplies? Where else can one spend the summer partaking in the battle of trying to get something to grow in your backyard besides fire ant colonies?
What I am is woman who lives in a place I can't imagine ever leaving. I raised my kids here, my grand kids were born here. My four cats were deposited upon my doorstep here. I'm a southern woman, and quite content with the label. Now can someone pass me a glass of that iced tea? I'm rather parched.
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Creative Non-Fiction in great quantities now available on the February Mule.
Terri French – When Pig Flies
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
It's been almost a quarter of a century that I have lived in the south. I am an almost legitimate, 100-percent, bona fide, honest to goodness, dixie chick. Sure as a cat's got climbing gear, I am as country as a churn. These hills 'n hollers, this red clay, is my neck of the woods, my stompin' grounds, my. . .Ok, so I'm trying too hard. I've still got a few months left to get the Yankee out of me, ok?
Stephen March: My Dream of Magic
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born about 100 miles South of the Mason Dixon line, and soon moved farther South, to Tennessee. I later lived in Louisiana, Georgia and, especially North Carolina. At a party in Soho a woman onced asked me, "If I woke you up in the middle of the night would you still talk that way (i.e. with that accent)? I told her that I would!
Joshua Edds: Epiphany on the Waccamaw
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am from everywhere and nowhere, a country boy lost in the city. The gods cursed me; my poor soul violently ripped from the warm embrace of my native West Virginia and hurled into exile. In my exile I've wandered aimlessly around the country, managing to settle down briefly in one strange place or another---the Kentucky coal fields, the drug-infested slums of the Carolina upstate, and now fondly call the bars and clubs of the Grand Strand nightlife "home."
Carole Poppleton – Rituals of Beauty
I grew up on grits, greens and biscuits with sawmill gravy. I never knew vegetables could be cooked without pork fat (strained and recycled from my mom's Maxwell House coffee can) until I went away to college. One of the highlights of my childhood was driving throught the streets of Birmingham, AL, and giggling at the crack of Vulcan's ass as an enormous statue of the iron god sits atop the main hill in 5-Points South.
Ray Abernathy – Valentine’s Day
Marianne was a smart young woman, but careless. You know, the kind of careless that makes you forget the zip code when you’re addressing a letter, and then the letter comes back and because it contains a bank deposit, causes...
Ray Clifton – Zombies in the South
Southern Legitimacy Statement: I grew up in the southern edge of the Blue Ridge in central Alabama, the product of a father from the cotton mill village and a mother who lived on the "respectable" side of the railroad tracks. A forester by trade, I roam the back roads of Alabama meeting people and looking for stories. Besides reading and writing, my interests include old country music, motorcycles, pork barbecue, and fine Boxer bulldogs.
Alberto Alzamora – Conversations with Dad
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
My Latino roots offer a unique perspective to my Southern legitimacy. I was raised so far in the South it’s not even the South to many, that’s how far south I lived, Miami to be exact. Eventually I moved up with you “northerner’s” to Raleigh, North Carolina, and was introduced to a pig pickin’ almost immediately. My friendly neighbors weren’t impressed about how we Colombians do the exact same thing, but they were awful polite! So here I am, a stranger in a strange land, 5 years now. I say hey, not good morning, and my wife is hot on the trail of the best hushpuppy recipe she can find. Legitimacy established!
Ann Landsberger – Peacocking on Barbed Wire
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
Long-suffering educator; freelance griper. Mother of five; drunk by seven. Rigorously embroiled in a twelve year battle over the pronunciation of the word "muscadine".
Tish Rogers Mosely – Recollections
Miss Tish was born and raised in Middle Tennessee where she still makes her home with her first husband J. and their sooner pup, Frances Montgomery. Where "take your shoes off and stay awhile" is not an invitation but a way of life. Where everyone has an Aunt Sis and Uncle Junior and no one outgrows their nickname. Where it's football on Friday, grapplin' on Saturday, and preachin' on Sunday. Where cuttin' your own switch is the price of forgettin' your manners and "because Mama said so," and "wait 'til your Daddy gets home," keeps you on the straight and narrow. Where "bless your heart" is better than cussin'. And, the two things you'd save in a fire are the family Bible and your 'naner puddin' bowl.
Sharon Stephenson – The Homing Mule
Southern Legitimacy Statement: Even though I was born in Kentucky (which is NOT Deep South), I was raised in Mississippi, schooled in Mississippi, college-educated in Mississippi and North Carolina. When I found permanent employment in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, my Maw asked if I was moving because I was tired of the Vicksburg battlefield and wanted something new. Let it be known that since I moved here in 1997, only one state has bothered to put a NEW monument on the Gettysburg battlefield. Guess which one? Of course. Mississippi.
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