Say something nice about the South

"I dont hate it," Quentin said, quickly,
at once, immediately; "I dont hate it," he said. I dont hate it
he thought, panting in the cold air, the iron New England dark: I dont. I
dont! I dont hate it! I dont hate it!

― gygax! (gygax!), Monday, 18 August 2003 16:16 (twenty years ago) link

The Appalachian Mountains. The Florida Everglades. Mammoth Cave.

let it be fixed!

Country music.

Rustic handcrafts.

Minnieballs.

Oh go on!

Charleston

Savannah

Hushpuppies

Southern men

roadside fruit stands selling peaches bigger than your head

banana puddin'

Me!
Hot Browns
Royal Crown Cola
Cotton

This is out of control.

― Dale the Titled (cprek), Monday, 18 August 2003 16:26 (twenty years ago) link

And yes, Ludacris.

They're not cold at all. We have about one day a year where it stays below freezing all day. You pay for it in the summer, but there are good stretches in the "winter" where you can leave your window open. Niiice.

It depends on the context. I get into this with my ex a lot, cause her diss is on Southern lit, and my MA was in history. Like Texas and Louisiana, it's geographically South, but it doesn't share the same English-settled/plantation/etc. culture as the Carolinas and Virginias, etc. It's certainly South in the sense of not-being-North.

That's why I've ended up not posting to this thread much; I don't know from the South so much as I do from Louisiana.

I think parts of FL are definitely 'The South'

And I agree that South Florida isn't really "the South." It's more like Cuba.

Oh:
Friendliness
Great service, ie waiters/waitresses
Relaxed pace

Some cajun food is OK, but keep the crawfish away from me. They're insects that live in the mud. Horrible nasty little vermin that actually *taste* like mud if you don't season them right. Sometimes you bite into one to find that it still has mud in it. Oh horrible, most horrible.

And gumbo? This is not cuisine. This is what prisoners and exiles found in the swamp they'd been banished to. Oh, look, okra! Bleeeargh.

Also, people really are more polite here. Though there's usually some intense hatred lurking underneath the politeness. Guess we got it from our colonial forefathers.

And gumbo? This is not cuisine. This is what prisoners and exiles found in the swamp they'd been banished to. Oh, look, okra! Bleeeargh.

I kill you, Kenan :)

Actually, lots of gumbo isn't made with okra. I know that's where the word comes from, but that's sort of like the old-fashioned gumbo. It's fallen out of fashion. I'm not crazy about it myself, most of the time.

(They weren't prisoners and exiles so much as misled landless nobility.)

Crawfish are just lobster! It sounds like you've had them mis-prepared or fished from the wrong places.

Either way, they were there because other people didn't want them around. Which is American as hell, and I'm all for it. No value judgement there. It's just... swamp food. Icky poo.

Either way, they were there because other people didn't want them around. Which is American as hell, and I'm all for it. No value judgement there. It's just... swamp food. Icky poo.

I actually realized as soon as I hit submit that I was talking more about New Orleans, and you were talking more about Acadiana. Habitual lapse for me.

Turning this around: there is a cultural appreciation for the underdog stemming from numerous unrelated reasons (and therefore affecting even those people who reject one reason or another).

Fresh local produce for the majority, if not entirety, of the year.

Hurricanes get names. Ever heard of a blizzard with a name? No. You know why? Cause they suck.

Most of the rest of the local Southern specialties are fantastic. Barbecue, for one. Soul food in general -- mashed potatoes, black-eyed peas, chicken fried steak, sweet cornbread, green beans. These are a few of my favorite things.

Manatees.

The Banjo.

Waffle house

I'll second chicken-fried steak. I remember the first time I ordered it -- in New Hampshire -- with no idea what to expect. A battered T-Bone? A steak which had somehow been wrapped in chicken? Was it just a fancy term for a chicken breast? The answer was so much better than I could have hoped.

Hm, let me think about the rest of the South, though. Oh! Good for road trips. Road trips in or through the South are the best. You don't have the urban sprawl of so much of the North, and you don't have the featureless homogeneity of so much of the Midwest.

I liked the rest of southern Louisiana though.. aside from the maelstrom of nutria roadkill everywhere. I stopped in Rayne (Frog Capital Of The World) for a little. I actually had to call some guy for a job interview that day! It was really bizarre.

Nick, why on earth would you be scared of it?!

I stopped in Rayne (Frog Capital Of The World) for a little.

Oh my God. That's honestly my favorite place in the world. Did you go to the truckstop (it's very visible) with the boudin balls?

Also, the citrus fruit and strawberries will put you off their lesser regional equivalents for life. (Might not apply if you live in California.)

Oh, well, Shreveport. Yeah, I'm not gonna argue with that :)

WEEKI WACHEE, Fla., Aug. 7 — Barbara Wynns has never stopped thinking about the days she spent in an enormous water tank here, somersaulting and backflipping in a sequined tail fin while sucking air from a rubber hose. It was the late 1960's, when young women from as far away as Tokyo auditioned for the privilege of being a mermaid at Weeki Wachee Springs, doing shows for half a million people a year.

These days, the mermaids at this aging water park are locals who are tired of waitressing and retail jobs, and their celebrity does not extend much past Hernando County, all scrub pine and suburban sprawl on Florida's west coast. Attendance at Weeki Wachee has dwindled, and the park has a long list of problems, not least an excess of algae in the mermaid tank.

"It's sad," said Mrs. Wynns, 54 and dainty, who quells her nostalgia by filling her home with hundreds of mermaid figurines and passes out business cards with a tiny portrait of her mermaid self, circa 1968. "To me, this 27-acre park is a universe that I love more than breathing. But not everybody gets it anymore."

The troubles became a crisis in June, when the park's landlord threatened to end its lease if it did not fix dilapidated structures, add fire exits and resolve sewage problems and a possible termite infestation.

The absentee owners, a group of investors, had put off repairs while trying for more than a year to sell Weeki Wachee Springs, one of the last and best-known of the kitschy theme-park dinosaurs that ruled Florida in the decades before Walt Disney World. The bad news for Weeki Wachee arrived just months after another faded roadside attraction, Cypress Gardens, closed abruptly after 67 years.

But just when it looked as if the mermaids were going to have to hang up their Lycra tails forever, the owners proposed a last-ditch plan: why not donate the park to the City of Weeki Wachee, which has nine residents and not much to concern itself with except the park's well-being? Mayor Robyn Anderson, a former mermaid who is the park's no-nonsense general manager, was gung-ho.

"If anybody should have it, it's the city," said Ms. Anderson, 29, flipping her long blond ponytail as rain bombarded the roof of her office and the few visitors wandering the grounds ran for cover. "The people who live and work here actually know this place and would keep an eye on it better than people who are never around."

The deal was completed last week; now all the city has to do is pay a $112,500 rent installment by Aug. 30 and make a few crucial repairs by later this week. The payment can be made in time, Ms. Anderson said, but maybe not the repairs. That could mean more trouble with the landlord, the Southwest Florida Water Management District, known as Swiftmud.

"We could move to terminate the lease if the deadlines aren't met," said Michael Molligan, the communications program director of Swiftmud.

The show, meanwhile, goes on, even on rainy days like this one, when a mere 20 people await the morning's performance in an amphitheater that smells of mildew.

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2003/08/11/national/12merm2_184.jpg It is taxing work: the mermaids have to stay in the 72-degree spring water for up to 45 minutes, holding their breath between swigs on strategically placed air hoses. For the last eight years they have performed "The Little Mermaid" — the original Hans Christian Andersen version, not the one that has helped make that other, bigger theme park in Orlando so rich. They experimented with a Pocahontas show a few years ago, but ditched it — audiences were crestfallen at losing Ariel, Ms. Anderson said.

The spring is a phenomenon in its own right — it pumps out over 100 million gallons of crystal-clear water a day and feeds it into the adjoining Weeki Wachee River, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico. It is the springhead that forms the mermaid tank; the rest of the spring snakes far underground, and the bottom has never been found.

Aware that water is a precious commodity in Florida, the city of Weeki Wachee recently sued to get possession of a local water utility that it feared might someday tap into the spring, another potential bad ending for the park.

In several months of training, new mermaids learn CPR, then become certified scuba divers before trying the peculiar art of hose-breathing. Newton Perry, a Navy diver who built the underground theater and opened the mermaid park in 1947, invented the technique. The breathing hoses scattered around the tank have buttons to adjust the air pressure — if it comes out too hard, it can bruise lungs. Mermaids bite down to stop the flow of air, and slowly exhale through their noses while sashaying to numbers like "I've Got the World by the Tail."

http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2003/08/11/national/12merm_184.jpgMs. Anderson is blunt about the job's many demands.

"You're in a tail, 16 feet under water, breathing on a hose," she said. "If you think about it too much you can freak out."

Mermaids occasionally have panic attacks, when they suddenly feel claustrophobic or breathless and rush to the surface. New performers face nasty ailments like ear and sinus infections as their bodies adjust. There is also the issue of creatures from the Weeki Wachee River invading the mermaid tank.

"Yesterday we had a manatee in here the whole time," said Sativa Smith, who does sound, lighting and stage direction for each performance from a tiny control booth next to the tank. "We get otters, gators, three kinds of turtles."

Once, a large alligator swam unseen into a hole under the amphitheater and popped out while a mermaid was in the tank cleaning the glass, Ms. Smith said. The mermaid quit. Now, technicians do a "water check" before every show, and if an alligator longer than four feet shows up, they cancel. Manatees are welcome, however — they like to visit when the mermaids are cleaning the tank with sponges, to get their backs scratched.

Mayor Anderson, who oversees mermaid auditions, said a lot of women have shown up for tryouts with no idea of what it takes. Many "aren't very good swimmers, believe it or not," she said. The perfect candidate can endure the chilly water, lip-sync, hold her breath for up to two minutes and swim with a smile — but no diving mask — without scrunching up her face. She will also perform happily, without seeing her adoring audience, for pay that starts at $6.50 an hour.

This morning, four women who fit the bill swam out from behind a curtain of bubbles that shot from the bottom of the tank when Ms. Smith flipped a switch in the control room. They were a few minutes into their act when Ms. Smith saw a flash of lightning, then another. The phone in the control room rang; it was Ms. Anderson, who had also seen the bolts. Ms. Smith turned on the loudspeaker in the tank, which the audience cannot hear, and ordered the mermaids out.

They disappeared into "the tube," a narrow shaft to "the hot room," a hidden, heated platform where mermaids huddle between scenes in towels and bathrobes.

Ms. Anderson said she had already made some of the repairs that Swiftmud requested — shoring up rotting beams at the Mermaid Gallery restaurant, for example — but she is holding off on others: the county fire marshal told her the mermaid theater had enough fire exits, she said, and she does not want to connect the park's sewage system to the county's until the busy season ends.

The city plans to ask Swiftmud if part of the lease payments can go to repairs. "We have to help each other out here," Ms. Anderson said. But she and other park devotees are also coming up with ideas for generating income. Ms. Anderson wants to expand the kiddie pool at the Buccaneer Bay water park that earns Weeki Wachee most of its money, and perhaps create a second mermaid show, with new costumes and choreography.

Ms. Wynns, the former mermaid, believes Weeki Wachee can go even further: why not put on bathing-suit fashion shows in the mermaid tank, bus tourists the 88 miles from Disney World, even have a mermaid circulate through the park, like Mickey, Minnie and Goofy?

Among other things, Ms. Wynns would like to see the algae — "scrunge" to the mermaids — removed.

"We had silky white sand and emerald eelgrass, and when the bubbles stood on it they looked like diamonds," she said wistfully. "I believe we can make this place magic again, with the right money."

Tep, I don't think I stopped at the Rayne truck stop, but I did go to the casino and walk through the frog restaurant. I had to do my phone job interview in the parking lot there. It was also a really beautiful day.

It's so gorgeous out there -- I stopped by accident just cause we needed gas once, and made a point of going back as often as possible. I used to hope to get a house out there someday, but now that I'm living with an academic I'm not sure that's possible.

Sam & Max, by Steve Purcell. In one of their adventures, Sam & Max hit the road, lookign the many missing manatees.
http://www.pe.net/~hancock/sammax01.gif

King of acronyms, right there.

Gareth, there's not much of note there, EXCEPT Joe Patti's, which is like the best fresh seafood market in the world. Bring your cooler, take a number, then order all the best, just-caught, fresh-as-all-get-out fish and seafood you can handle. When they ring you up, they'll pack the seafood in ice in your cooler. My dad drives 40 minutes one-way each week to shop there.

I've decided to only date Southern folk from now on. Sorry yankees.

I'm in my 7th period class right now and I have one whole student. Sorry that's OT but it's just remarkable. Hence the posting.

I had to extend this to "people who've lived in the South" (I'm not sure native New Orleanians would be dateable for me), but ditto.

Me too! Let's have a club.

*confounded beyond belief*

boo! piss all over her joke, whydoncha?

Um... I'll have the gumbo, please.

(xpost--db you know I'm talkin' to you)

[Pulls off headpiece of giant squirrel suit, looks camera in the eye]

"What, surpised to see me? Face it--you're a racist."

i try to use the phrase "all up in your grill" as many times as possible thru-out the workday. it sends the brokers who call into titters.

DB: Who told you that Tacos from Jack in the Box were any good? Taking your life in your hands, weren't you;>?

Jack puts sliced cheese on his tacos. This is clearly, clearly wrong.

Fried okra rules you fules. I had some with my jalapeno burger this weekend.

Stence, born in TX, raised amongst the bluegrass = even bettah!

I'll add Sam's jalapeno burger to the list of somethings nice.

Also, syrups. The selection of syrups for pancakes, waffles, French toast, biscuits, etc., is staggering.

We don't have any Hardee's or Waffle House restaurants locally. We do have Weinerschnitzel, though, which is thoroughly a Sun Belt thing I would imagine. We also have Jason's Deli, which IIRC originated from the South and thus could also fit into this thread. (OMG, their pasta salads. There's this one made with angel hair pasta and featuring chopped avocado and shrimp... *sighs*. It's so big you can share it with someone else, which is a neat thing.

Other localized restaurants here:

Jim's (pretty much an S.A.-only thing)
Bill Miller's (only available in Central & South TX)
Luby's (is it just a TX thing or is it available elsewhere?)
Whataburger (mainly a TX thing)
Taco Cabana (mainly a TX thing)

... and people wonder why so many of us here have weight problems....

I made a list once, just at a run-of-the-mill grocery store that wasn't anything special. I don't think I have a copy, but off the top of my head, it included:

* Maple syrups: fake and two grades of real
* "Indeterminate" syrups labeled things like "waffle syrup" or simply with a brand name -- distinctly different from fake maple syrup, but not just corn syrup either.
* Cinnamon syrup
* Praline syrup
* The fruit flavored syrups: strawberry, blueberry, cherry, apple-cinnamon
* Molasses: light, dark, blackstrap
* Cane syrup (my preference; FUCK, I forgot to tell my friends to bring me some)
* The many kinds of honey you can get now

http://www.centralmarket.com/images/cm/nav/cmLogo.gif

It's a Texas thing, you know. :)

You guys had Whataburger in Phoenix as well? ROCK ON! They're expanding further than I anticipated. I know they originate in Corpus Christi, so hurrah for the area team.

Yeah, my ex's dad is from NY but lives in San Antonio now, and this is the only place he'll get cheesecake or deli sandwiches from. I never got around to trying em cause I was so busy with BBQ AND CHACHO'S.

FUCK NO I DIDNT MEAN PEACH/MANGO TEA.

-porch sitting
-double hashbrowns covered
-Beach music
-Link Wray
-Jockey's Ridge
-the junction in Athens, GA which has, like, 4 Waffle Houses about 1/4 of a mile from each other

I would nominate you as honorary southerner but wasn't actually born there myself, so I'm not sure I can. My father's from the South, maybe I've inherited his title.

And yeah, it's hot, but -- even though I like the AC cooler than most people, etc. -- I'll take the heat over the cold any day. It's never so hot outside that it hurts.

kingfish, you get it.

Unsurprisingly, I like the cold and the snow.

and i like winter and the cold, thankee much. it's the slavic blood, see.

I love how this thread is almost all about food. I'll introduce the best thing though:

COUNTRY MUSIC!

yee haw.

Chicago residents to thread!!!

Oh, wait, they're all outside, enjoying day 25 of our 45 day pseudosummer ... 9 months of miserably-frigid-to-tolerable-but-depressing-cold-and-damp weather is much worse than several months of brain-baking heat ...

http://www.cocktailtimes.com/tasting/bottle/woodford.jpg

But how cold are we talking about, anyway? Like gulf stream or otherwise coastally mitigated cold, or wind-whipped no-sun-for-five-months barren-midwestern-plain cold?

Which is why you need this:
http://64.95.118.51/images/opti/6e/1b/fddkSpiritsBy_NameAllKnob_Creek_Kentucky_Straight_Bourbon_Whiskey-resized200.gif

I want to touch people!

Sure ... but on some occasions, though, I've found 'southern hospitality' much more venomous by way of condescension + insincerity than good old fashioned northern fuck-off gruffness ...

(Isolated occasions, please understand; I totally see what you're saying, but sometimes the thinking strikes me as about as wishful as how 'plainspokenly friendly' and 'down to earth' Chicagoans get blanketly designated)

, I've found 'southern hospitality' much more venomous by way of condescension + insincerity
I've found that this is often the hearer interpreting it through their own lens where the speaker is being perfectly sincere. The hearer isn't acculturated so assumes what they are hearing is bullshit, according to how such speech would be interpreting in their own regional culture.
imho.

1). GRAVEYARDS! RIGHT BY THE ROADSIDE!

2). CIVIL WAR BATTLEFIELDS! WITH CANNONS(Forgive me, I'm a history teacher!

3). BIG ASS GLASSES OF SWEET TEA!

4). RELATIVE EASE OF ACCESS TO LIQUOR, FIREWORKS, LIQUOR AND FIREARMS!

5). PIGGLY WIGGLY!

6). TAKING A WEEK TO TELL A STRANGER THE TIME!

You forgot liquor!

Is this unusual? Where else would they be?

Ha! I like that. Like they're far apart, and excessively cute.

One truly great thing about the South is that the following people are/were Southerners:

Martin Luther King, Jr. (and his widow, Coretta Scott King)
Medgar and Charles Evers
Tennessee Williams
James Earl Jones
Oprah Winfrey
George Clooney (if you can count KY as the South)
Ron Howard
Will Rogers
Maya Angelou
Leontyne Price
Ray Charles
Otis Redding
Janis Joplin
Buddy Holly

... and I just found out through searching online that one of the few MTV personalities I actually really like still to this day, Tabitha Soren, WAS BORN IN SAN ANTONIO! YES!

"Your head is full of their language / There's wisdom there you're sure"

(I wondered if this weren't the case.)

Maybe, but most people can hear sincerety or the lack thereof through any accent or cultural habits the speaker may have. If Brian says he has encountered rude and slightly sinister Southerners, I see no reason to doubt him. So have I.

????????????????????

Did I miss something?

Also, now that I think about it, once again I must point out that Fredericksburg, TX, is THE place to go for yummy peaches and fun times peach picking. And I'd be more than happy to start up a sign-up sheet for those who want to go peach picking next summer. I've already got Sam's and Luna's names on the sheet; who else? We could go eat barbecue afterward -- it'd be a great day!

and, according to Bruce Campbell, in fake blood.

sam, would you slurp that?

I'd like to add tubing the Guadalupe to what's nice about the South.

http://www.osric.com/~jeremy/hooray.jpg

Yes. I was the guy in the front row who kept bringing his horn up on the wrong beat of the cadence and feeling like an out-of-place jackass (but I could play better than 90% of those other dirtbags)

It will embiggen the heart of the smallest man!

Fried okra is awesome--pick the small ones, roll around in cornmeal, fry. No egg, no breading. One of the best things in the world on a hot day, along with fried green tomatoes.

Cool thread. As do a lot of native southerners (I grew up in Tenn.), I have conflicted feelings about the region. The people in the south are usually nicer, or at least more civil, than those elsewhere. On the other hand, having just moved back to Davidson Co., Tenn. (outside Nashville) I have become re-acquainted with that weird simmering aggression and resentment that so many southerners (men, wimmen too) seem to carry around with them. It's an American trait, obviously, but I do think that southerners of a certain stripe seem to have more of it. I also find it weird that so many people around here affect this super-patriotism when in fact the whole region has always been in opposition to so many "American values." Lack of consciousness?

Did I miss something?

Well, did I?

It's really Dee, or Deanna if you'd like. ;) (See the anagrams thread for more info.)

- Sorry about the SCHLITTERBAHN spelling.

No worries hon. If you don't live around here or have studied German at length, it would be kinda tricky to spell.

Its just that that whole area is confusing with their german influence. Like for instance: Bexar County, 'Historical' Gruene, etc.

Bexar County! You mentioned our county! *laughs* We do have a lot of Germanic influence here in this area, which is both neat and interesting. I'm sure you're aware of the fact that one of the main thoroughfares here in S.A. is called Fredericksburg Rd.; well, the big thoroughfare in my neighborhood is called Wurzbach, which again highlights how thoroughly Germanic peoples have influenced the region.

There is a place in Gruene called the Gristmill that serves the best chicken-fried steak in the world...and its the size of a housecat. Mmmmmm...graaaavyyyyy......

The Gristmill! I've been meaning to try that out. Just need to figure out if Gruene is a short enough distance away for me to drive there sometime soon.

(Boerne is very close by to where I live. I can totally do anything in Boerne. I could also easily handle the drive out to Leon Springs.)

Ahhh, the TX Hill Country....

xpost - I tried to, but it was closed!

What's wrong with gay clubs?

xpost nothing, but I was asking where I could go to watch football.

And are the two of us just going to derail every single thread we post today, h? That's my wish.

by brilliantatbreakfast.blogspot.com

I WANT

What the fucking hell are you talking about?

I'm talking about manner and mien rather than world view. Any Southerners I've met all seem pretty laid back, unlike most Northerners.

As an aside, I do love how saying you like Southerners is such a red lines crosser for Northerners.

So, so true.

Not a line crossing thing for most people I know, more just a matter of thinking that anyone who would make a generality about an entire region's people (aka "they're all likeable", "they're all laid-back", etc) doesn't really know much about that place or those people.

Headed to Dollywood tomorrow!

Ooh! I've never made it there, but I hear it's fun.

It's weirder than one would think, and probably far more gay than most of its punters realize.

Bitchin roller coasters, too