Say something nice about the South

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?