I was born southern, I grew up southern, I am still southern, and I will die southern. I didn't marry southern one time, and now that marriage is over. I gave birth to two southern sons. One went to live with his father ( not my choice ) and he grew up northern. I have forgiven him. The other one grew up southern but acts like he grew up northern. I have forgiven him, because he married a southern girl; which means my granddaughter is southern. 

    Now this has nothing to do with my way is better, or you are wrong, and I am right. It just Is!  I am proud to be southern. I know we don't have the best schools in the nation, and our politics have been referred to as somewhat " unclean" well, all that is true but that does not change the fact that I am southern. 

    I have southern things in my head. I walk southern, I talk southern, I sit southern, and I stand proud southern. I eat southern food, I drink southern drinks. I say things like, ya'll  and "well, don't that just beat all!"  I say tote instead of carry,  I say things like,  " that dog don't hunt" to infer that I don't believe what you are saying to me.

    I go barefoot a lot, even in winter. I like to eat things that some people would get sick looking at like pickled pigs feet, chitlins, chicken gizzards' and livers. I like turnip greens and hog jowl. I realize that some of you right now are scrambling for that " how to talk southern" book someone gave you last Christmas as a joke. It's no joke! You need it. I drive a pickup truck and it has a Harley Davidson sticker on the back along with a " brake for moose" sticker.  There are two Harley's in the garage to prove it isn't just a sign on my window.

    I call my neighbors "cuz" and my older neighbors " uncle and aunt" and it doesn't matter if they are kin or not. Why? Because I am southern. I have picked cotton, peas, beans, pulled radishes and watermelon. I have been deer hunting, squirrel hunting and fox hunting. I have drank water from a well, I have used an outhouse. I have gone to school barefoot in the spring and had free lunches cause we were too many on not enough. I had four brothers and two sisters. two of my brother's and my mom and dad are over in the cemetery under the tall pine trees just down a dirt road from where I grew up. I'm sure that will be my final address as well. I have chased lighten bugs ( fire fly to northerner's) and played after dark In the front yard; while my father and neighbors watched the " Gillette Saturday night fights" I have sat on the front porch in a rocking chair and shook a gallon jug of milk until it turned to butter milk or butter which ever the case should be. I have swam in the coldest water east of the rocks, Mill Creek. It was just a jump and a hop across a fence and through the big ditch and down a trail around a bend and down a slope from our house. I have eaten watermelon that lay in that cold water for an hour while we were swimming. I have gathered eggs from the hen house. I have slopped the hogs, I have fed the hounds, the black and tans , the blue ticks, and a cur dog with one blue eye and one brown.

   I have bitten my sister Karol in the back until it bled, out of summer boredom and not enough parental guidance. I have tied two crawfish together by their tails and watched them strain until one's tail came off. I have fished in the slew behind the house for what ever was in there, using a slab of bacon and a string for gear.

    I have a scar up my left leg where my brother C.J. kicked me down a ladder that we were neither one supposed to be on, but he being the "oldest and wisest" thought that he belonged up there and I didn't. So after infection set in and I had to go to the hospital to have it scraped clean, I did the only thing I could do, I told on him.

    I have read my sister's diary, and I still can get her in trouble although she just turned 50 this month.

    I have walked down a dusty dirt road crossed the blacktop that bubbled with heat in the summer to "check the mail."  I have walked down that dirt road to kick the dust up just to have something to do, and watched the rain come dancing down the road to meet me. I have played in over flowing ditches, with the water rushing past my legs and tried to catch what ever came through. 

    I have sat on the porch listening to the crickets chirp while someone turned the handle on the ice cream maker and I have sat on the ice cream maker with my behind freezing off so that the top would stay on tight. I have sucked down that ice cream in the heat of the night while neighbors played their guitars and everyone sang. I always wanted to be up there singing too. It's a southern thing. I imagined myself the next Loretta Lynn, or Tammy Lynette. I am neither. 

   What I am is southern, I was born southern, I have lived southern and I will die southern. My parents before me, my children and grandchildren after I hope will be southern. It is a gift from God. I have stood in the old one room church where I was baptized and where I married the northerner, and sang " The Old Rugged Cross" and " Amazing Grace" and in September of 1969 promised a northern boy that I would always love him and follow after him. As my daddy walked me up the aisle, I knew it wouldn't be because he had never listened to the crickets out of an open window at night and never would. I longed at that moment as I said, " I do" to say, " no, I don't, I want to go home with daddy and maybe later go fox hunting" but because I am southern, I didn't because that's not  how I was raised !!

    God bless America and God bless the north and thank you God for blessing the south