Tag: Gary Carter

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Having been blessed and honored to have appeared previously in the Mule, I’d proudly hang my southern legitimacy on that fact alone. However, if you need more, let me just point out that when you grow up...

Southern Legitimacy Statement: Growing up in the North Carolina, where you’re Tar Heel born and Tar Heel bred and when you die you’re Tar Heel dead, I believe—no, am downright certain—that ghosts and monsters surround us, seen and unseen—and sometimes the living ones are more frightening than the ones lingering in the darkness, as in any down-South member of the Republican Party. But still I keep circling back like some broke-nose Faulkner character and lingering, this last time around to Asheville, where I was purportedly conceived, and which seems to be a slightly crazed place where pushing words around until they make sense seems to make sense—for now. And where you can just escape up into the mountains and find some peace. **