I was talking with a friend the other day and the topic of Southern culture was brought up...and it got me thinking. What is the true definition of the South and a Southerner? Is it tradition; a friendly smile; a slow drawl; a polo on the chest tucked into seersucker rooted by Sperry's? Is it tradition; the amount of sugar in a cold glass of iced tea; the overuse of conjugated words, an appreciation for culture and the past? The Mason-Dixon Line geographically draws a line of where the North ends and the South begins...but it isn't about location or the use of a koozie; it is a mindset, a way of life...it is how you were born and raised. Let's be honest, Maryland, those Virginias and Florida are under the MDL...and that doesn't mean a thing, y'all.
On to a couple of Quotes...
Well, they're Southern people, and if they know you are working at home they think nothing of walking right in for coffee. But they wouldn't dream of interrupting you at golf.
- Harper Lee
Yes, sir. I'm a real Southern boy. I got a red neck, white socks, and Blue Ribbon beer.
-Billy Carter
She grew up on a side of the road
Where the church bells ring and strong love grows
She grew up good
She grew up slow
Like American honey
-Lady Antebellum, "American Honey"
All I can say is that there's a sweetness here, a Southern sweetness, that makes sweet music. . . . If I had to tell somebody who had never been to the South, who had never heard of soul music, what it was, I'd just have to tell him that it's music from the heart, from the pulse, from the innermost feeling. That's my soul; that's how I sing. And that's the South.
-Al Green
Do Southerners laugh at different things than Northerners do? Yes...Northerners.
-Roy Blount
- John Egerton, from "Southern Food, at Home, on the Road, in History"
In the South, the breeze blows softer...neighbors are friendlier, nosier, and more talkative. (By contrast with the Yankee, the Southerner never uses one word when ten or twenty will do)...This is a different place. Our way of thinking is different, as are our ways of seeing, laughing, singing, eating, meeting and parting. Our walk is different, as the old song goes, our talk and our names. Nothing about us is quite the same as in the country to the north and west. What we carry in our memories is different too, and that may explain everything else.
-Charles Kuralt in "Southerners: Portrait of a People"
The South--where roots, place, family, and tradition are the essence of identity.
-Social historian Carl N. Degler
Even if they've moved away, most people who grew up in the South still consider themselves Southern.
-Lillian Hellman
Growing up Southern is a privilege, really. It's more than where you're born, it's an idea and state of mind that seems imparted at birth. It's more than loving fried chicken, sweet tea, football, and country music. it's being hospitable, devoted to front porches, magnolias, moon pies and coca-cola... and each other. We don't become Southern - we're born that way.
-Anonymous
Things a True Southerner Knows
A Midwesterner's Thoughts on the South (including rules, definitions and thoughts)
