Southern Legitimacy Statement Hey, yall. I was born in the Heart of Dixie, Lower Alabama, or LA, as the natives like to call it. I cut my teeth on my Granny's lard biscuits and drooled over her blackberry cobblers and egg custard and sweet potato pies. Cornbread was fried, made to look like little golden doughnuts, hole in the middle and all. I've picked cotton (made $1.10 for a whole day's work, I was only 6), blackberries, peas and butterbeans, and I've gone to the mayhaw groves where they laid old worn-out sheets on the dirt beneath the trees. They shook the trees until the red-orange little berries fell to the ground. Best danged jelly you will ever want to eat! The Peanut Festival and the Boll Weevil Monument are part of my vocabulary. All night Gospel sings and Sacred Harp sings were two of my favorite things. Catching fireflies in an old Mason jar was a typical summer eve's activity. I've eaten scrambled eggs with pork brains, and every true southerner knows that the fish roe was the best part of the fish! Being southern does have its perks, now, doesn't it?