Can You Hear This?

This is another jewel I received via email. No author or reference was attached. If you read it and know to whom we can give credit for this clever summation of the weather in our great state, please let me know.

YOU KNOW YOU ARE IN SOUTH CAROLINA IN JULY WHEN. . . .
The birds have to use potholders to pull worms out of the ground.
The trees are whistling for the dogs.
The best parking place is determined by shade instead of distance.
Hot water now comes out of both taps.
You can make sun tea instantly.
You learn that a seat belt buckle makes a pretty good branding iron.
The temperature drops below 95 and you feel a little chilly.
You discover that in July it only takes 2 fingers to steer your car.
You discover that you can get sunburned through your car window.
You actually burn your hand opening the car door.
You break into a sweat the instant you step outside at 7:30 a.m.
Your biggest bicycle wreck fear is, “What if I get knocked out and end up lying on the pavement and cook to death?”
You realize that asphalt has a liquid state.
The potatoes cook underground, so all you have to do is pull one out and add butter, salt and pepper.
Farmers are feeding their chickens crushed ice to keep them from
laying boiled eggs.
The cows are giving evaporated milk.

Having read this, if you find that your personal constitution would not bear this type of heat, don’t even think about visitin’ during dog days………….otherwise known as August.

While Scarlett had all the county boys fluttering around her at the Twelve Oaks Bar-B-Q, the other Belles were put out. Why? Because she had the art of flirting “down pat”, as they say down south.

Flirting is a way of life in the south. Men, women, and children are exposed to this ancient form of communication and know it the way they know that August is hot and muggy, it’s just the way it is.

I am an indiscriminate flirt. I flirt with men, women, children, young, old and everything in between. Oh no, I can hear the gasps of those I’ve shocked and offended as I write.

It’s is very important to understand that flirting, especially the southern version, is not necessarily sexual in nature.

While flirting can be used in a sexual way, to flirt with someone is to show them attention with affection. Not necessarily sexual affection, just affection. If you have ever seen a baby in a shopping cart and have taken time to talk, grin and wave to get the baby to laugh and/or grin back, where I come from that’s called flirting.

Southern flirting is like sincere flattery, it makes the recipient feel good. For a moment, that individual feels special in a way they didn’t feel a moment before. It’s a wonderful feeling to give and a wonderful feeling to receive.

With all the weirdness in the world today, it’s understandable that to some this sounds too overt and/or inappropriate. But rest assured, if you’re ever down South and find yourself on the receiving end of some warm southern flirtation, even if it’s from a complete stranger, you can be your boots you’ll feel like you’ve just been wrapped up in a warm blanket on a cool evening or settled down for a comfortable snooze in the porch swing.

The whole idea is to make someone feel appreciated for themselves. No matter who’s giving and who’s receiving, everybody goes away feeling a little lighter and brighter and, Lord knows, we can all use more of that!

As you know by now, I’m partial to (that means fond of to you non-natives) all things Southern and proud of my roots, even if they’re caught up in the kudzo! God bless Cracker Barrel’s gift shop where I was first introduced to the concept of “GRITS”. They have it on T-shirts, sweatshirts, canvas bags, etc. One of my girlfriends bought one and wore it proudly, bein’ as how she was from Alabama and all!

Once again, via email, I received the following list of things all us GRITS grew up knowing and takin’ it for granted that others would too. Unfortunately, that’s not the case, those folks from other parts of the country don’t know or don’t get it. Havin’ a strong desire to share and celebrate my Southern heritage, I’m posting it for you:

Southern girls know bad manners when they see them:
1. Drinking straight out of a can.
2. Not sending thank you notes.
3. Velvet after February.
4. White shoes before Memorial Day or after Labor Day

Southern girls always say:
1. “Yes, ma’am.”
2. “Yes, sir.”

Southern girls have a distinct way with fond expressions:
1. “Y’all come back now, ya heaah.”
2. “Well, bless your heart.”
3. “Drop by when you can.”
4. “How’s your mama?”
5. “Love your hair.”

Southern girls know their three R’s:
1. Rich
2. Richer
3. Richest

Southern girls know everybody’s first name:
1. Honey
2. Darlin’
3. Shugah

Southern girls know the movies that speak to their hearts:
1. “Gone With the Wind”
2. “Fried Green Tomatoes”
3. “Driving Miss Daisy”
4. “Steel Magnolias”

Southern girls know their cities dripping with Southern charm:
1. Hotlanta or Adlanna (Atlanta as outsiders say)
2. Richmon
3. Challston
4. S’vannah
5. Birminham
6. Nawlins’
7. Oh! and that city in Alabama ? It’s pronounced MUNTGUMRY!

Southern girls know the three deadly sins:
1. Bad hair
2. Bad manners
3. Bad blind dates

G.R.I.T.S. = Girls Raised in The South!

That reminds me. I have a rubber stamp that says “Just because your children were born in the South does not make them Southerners. After all, if a cat had kittens in the oven, that wouldn’t make them biscuits.”

For all of you who appreciate the uniqueness of Southern-speak, you will like this. I didn’t write (although I wish I had) and I got it many years ago via an email forward, so I have no idea who to credit and thank for it but it’s just too good not to share with you. If the original author is known by anyone reading this, please email me her name so that I can give credit where credit is most definitely due.

In the meantime, ya’ll enjoy….

Someone once noted that a Southerner can get away with the most awful kind of insult just as long as it’s prefaced with the words “Bless his/her heart”.

As in, “Bless his heart”, if they put his brain on the head of a pin, it’d roll around like a BB on a six-lane highwway. Or, “Bless her heart”, she’s so bucktoothed, she could eat an apple through a picket fence.”

There are also the sneakier ones that I remember from tongue-clucking types of my childhood: “You know, it’s amazing that even though she had that baby seven months after they got married, bless her heart, it weighed 10 pounds!”

As long as the heart is sufficiently blessed, the insult can’t be all that bad, at least that’s what my Great Aunt Tiny (bless her heart, she was anything but) used to say.

I was thinking about this the other day when a friend was telling me about her new Northern friend who was upset because her toddler is just beginning to talk and he has a Southern accent. My friend, who is very kind and, bless her heart, she can’t do anything about those thighs of hers, so don’t even start, was justifiably miffed about this. After all, this woman had CHOSEN to move south a couple of years ago.

“Can you believe it? she said to my friend, A child of mine is going to be taaaaaallllkin’ a-liiiike thiiiiissss.” I can think of far worse fates than speaking Southern for this adorable little boy, who, bless his heart is surely the East Coast king of mucus. I wish I’d been there. I would have said that she shouldn’t fret, because there’s nothing so sweet or pleasing on the ear as a soft, Southern drawl. Of course, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised at her “carryings on.” After all, when you come from a part of the world where the “family silver” refers to the large medallion around Uncle Vinnie’s neck, you just have to, as Aunt Tiny would say, “consider the source”.

Now don’t get me wrong, some of my dearest friends are from the North, bless their hearts. I welcome their perspective, their friendships and their recipes for authentic Northern Italian food. I’ve even gotten past their endless complaints that you can’t get good bread down here.

The ones who really gore my ox are the native Southerners who have begun to act almost embarrassed about their speech. It’s as if they want to bury it in the “Hee Haw” cornfield. We’ve already lost too much. I was raised to swanee, not swear, but you hardly ever hear anyone say that anymore, I swanee you don’t.

And I’ve caught myself thinking twice before saying something is “right much”, “right close”, or “right good” because non-natives think this is right funny indeed.

I have a friend from Bawston who thinks it’s hilarious when I say I’ve got to “carry” my daughter to the doctor or to “cut off” the light. That’s ok. It’s when you have to explain things to people who were born here that I get mad as a mule eating bumble bees. Not long ago, I found myself trying to explain to a native Southerner what I meant by being “in the short rows”.

I’m used to explaining that expression (it means you’ve worked a right smart but you’re almost done) to newcomers to the land of buttermilk and cold collard sandwiches (better than you think), but to have to explain it to a Southerner was just plain weird.

The most grating example is found in restaurants and stores where nice, Magnolia-mouthed clerks now say “you guys” instead of ya’ll and their mamas raised them up to say. I’d sooner wear white shoes in February, drink unsweetened ice tea and eat Miracle whip instead of Duke’s than utter the words “you guys”.

Not long ago I went to lunch with four women friends, and the waiter, a nice Southern boy, you-guys-ed all of us within an inch of our lives. “You guys ready to order? What can I get you guys? Would you guys like to keep you guys’ forks?”

Lord, have mercy. It’s a little comforting that , at the very same time some natives are so eager to blend in, they’ve taken to making microwave grits (an abomination), the rest of the world is catching on that it’s cool to be Clampet. How else to you explain NASCAR tracks and Krispy Kreme doughnut franchaises springing up like yard onions all over the country?

To those of you who’re still a little embarrassed by your Southerness, take two tent revivals and a dose of redeye gravy and call me in the morning. Bless your heart.

I’m from the South (South Carolina, to be exact), I speak with a drawl and I think ya’ll is perfectly acceptable English grammar! Yes, we speak slowly compared to the average New Yorker and are amused that this is interpreted by other folks as being slow witted. We wave to folks going down the street, whether we know them or not, speak to complete strangers in public as if we’ve known them all our lives.

We believe everybody is welcome, when you’re with friends or family, you’re at home and it’s pretty much what you see is what you get. That means if you show up unexpected, but perfectly welcomed, and there are dishes in the sink or dust on the tabletops, you overlook it.

There are certain aspects of behavior that I have grown up with and become accustomed to in the South. Girls were taught to be ladies and appropriately groomed for the occasion. Being polite is a way of life. Boys are taught to stand when a lady enters the room, hold doors open, carry the bags in from the car and the trash out. Both are bred to have an innate understanding of true hospitality and to offer it, no matter what.

I grew up with friends, relatives and neighbors dropping by the house, sticking their heads in the screen door (we didn’t have air conditioning) and saying “anybody home” or “yoo hoo”! If it was hot, they got offered some ice tea and to “have a seat on the porch”, if it was cold they got offered some ice tea and to come in and “sit a spell”.

If we were sitting down to supper, (in the South dinner is at noon and supper is in the evening) they were invited to “pull up a chair”. No one thought a thing about droppin’ by to visit without callin’ ahead.

I know what it’s like for it to be 95 degrees in the shade and so humid you have to cut the air and chew to get a breath. And I know the incredible excitement of seeing those first few flakes of snow falling, guaranteeing, since it only took one or two, that we’d have a “snow” day off from school.

I love the smell of freshly cut grass and gasoline from the mower. I love watching the sky turn purple during the twilight and seeing the lightening bugs under the canopy of trees in the backyard. I played hide n’ seek, red light/green light, and roll the bat during summer evenings.

I know there’s nothing worse than long Sunday afternoons after church with nothing to do and I know there’s nothing better than long Sunday afternoons after church with nothing to do.

And I grew up with women and men that knew how to prepare and appreciate a home cooked meal. One that didn’t come out of box (although it may contain some type of Campbell’s condensed soup) and could often be made up of nothing more than the fresh vegetables just picked that day from the garden.

When a meal was put on the table, it didn’t matter if you had two or twenty there was always enough to go around somehow. It was worth cleaning your plate in order to have dessert, especially if it was ice cream made in a hand-cranked churn.

Good food was a constant. It was always there. You never wondered if what you were going to find on the table was good, just whether or not it was going to be one of your special favorites. The result of all these culinary blessings as I was growing up is my love of cooking……………….especially cooking for those I love. I realize that in today’s world of instant gratification, I’m in the minority when I say I would rather come home after work and cook a huge meal, from scratch (save those Campbell’s condensed soups) and serve it to my family, than to go out to a fancy restaurant.

All I need to wind down from a stressful day is my family on stools at the island counter, plenty of fresh ingredients, particularly vegetables, a glass of wine and an idea for a good meal. Whether it’s 2o minutes or 2 hours, we enjoy each other, the process, and, of course, the results! I think nothing of making biscuits from scratch to go with the fried steak and gravy or creating a tangy marinara to go with the pasta, grilled salmon and steamed asparagas. Cooking is one of the most relaxing things I do and it feeds both the body and the soul.

We all need nurturing of some kind on a regular basis and with life being as hectic as it is today, this is one of the ways I nurture both myself and my family.

I highly recommend, even to those of you that can’t handle making a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese, you try to start some self nurturing with some simple recipes and fresh ingredients. Make yourself a salad, cutting up the vegetables yourself rather than going to the grocery store salad bar. You might be surprised how many hungry parts of you get fed!