Ray Sharp: Wind Fierce as Love
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
I left the South many years ago as a young man, yet still on long winter nights I ask myself why. The Northern Lights are beautiful with their cold and alien glow, but I surely miss sticky summers in the Ohio River Valley, honeysuckle vine on the back fence, and the soft lilting way that Laura is pronounced Laahrah.
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Ray Sharp – “Ozark Spring Suite” – A Poem
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
The son of two Yankee carpetbaggers, I was raised in Louisville, Kentucky, a border town where the residents, Lou-uh-villians, brag about the fact that they don't live in Indiana. In fifth grade, when Jim Rife asked me if I were a Yank or a Reb, I was confused because of my alien parentage, and replied "Well, the North won, so that makes us all Yankees now, right?" Wrong! But now that I live in the land of perpetual snow, I miss the dogwoods and magnolias in springtime, tubing through the Red River Gorge in summer, cross-country meets at Seneca Park in the fall, and UL and UK basketball in the winter (go Cards!). I can tell you exactly where I was when Christian Laettner hit that turn-around buzzer-beater over two Wildcat defenders to lead Duke to the Final Four. And my favorite breakfast is the cheese eggs, raisin toast, grits and black coffee at—where else?---Waffle House.
