I decided I'd try to compile a list, and I actually stayed awake last night going through it in my head (I should have gotten up and written it down, 'cause Lord knows my memory isn't what it used to be!) I wanted to do this to show my friends who live elsewhere what they're missing. Then I realized that even a lot of you true Southerners aren't going to know about some of these things because you grew up in the city. Or you're too young to have experienced some of it. Or you're so old you've forgotten.
So here, in no particular order, are some of the things that make me love where I live.
1. Tomatoes. Home-grown, just picked, bite-into-it-while-you-stand-there and have-the-juice-drip-down-your-chin, tomatoes. Yellow, orange, red, heirloom (Black Prince, Mr. Stripey, if you don't know what I'm talking about, shame on you) tomatoes. I love 'em all. (Except fried green tomatoes...I've never liked them much. Does that make me a Yankee??)
2. Sweet tea. I'm not talking about some powdery mix stuff with fake lemon flavoring. I'm not talking about your sweet-n-low tea, or splenda-fied tea, or even truvia-ed tea. I'm talking about so much sugar that your teeth hurt tea. So much that you almost can't make the sugar dissolve, even when you put it in while the tea's still hot; sweet tea like grandma used to make. (I drink my tea unsweetened...but when I was little my Grandmother Breeden made the best sweet tea EVER.)
3. The smell of newly-mown hay. You probably don't know this one unless you had pasture land in front of, on either side of, and behind your house. And you got to drive the big one-ton stickshift truck while your dad and anybody else he could find quickly threw the giant bales of hay into the back of it to beat the rain coming in. When you were 12.
4. The taste of honeysuckle. When you're little you're taught how to pull the center of the flower out and suck on the nectar. We'd do this until we felt sick. (We'd also make earrings out of the seed pod of some other kind of flower out of my mom's garden, but I don't remember what those were called. Somebody help?)
5. The early yellow bloom of the forsythia bushes. While I'm pretty sure they are hardy enough to survive further north, I still think of them as typically Southern. I know I could use buttercups as my early-blooming example (that would be daffodils to you Yanks) but somehow forsythias always made me know that dogwoods would be blooming soon, and dogwoods are one of my favorite trees.
6. Barbeque. While other areas of the country claim to have barbeque, we know better.
7. Going to Daytona for spring break. All you Yankees went to Fort Lauderdale; we went to Daytona. If we absolutely had to, we went to Panama City. But in my day, Daytona was the place to be. No details. This is a family show.
8. Mowing the grass in a real, pesticide-free yard, and smelling the wild onions. We pay a lot of money nowadays to keep those out of our sod. What a shame.
9. Hearing people say the following truly Southern words or phrases:
honeychile, all-a-y'all, fixin' to, I been knowin' her, it's cattywampus (it ain't straight), I'll tote it for you, I'll carry you to town, it tumped over and spilt, I'd ruther you go, he'll whup your butt, (okay, you get my drift here...)
10. Catching lightning bugs. These would be fireflies to the uninitiated. We'd catch them, put them in an old mayonnaise jar, and freeze them. Then we'd pull their little butts off and smear it on us like war paint. And play chase in the dark. Nothing like glow-in-the-dark bug guts, huh? (PETA isn't big on lightning bugs, is it???)
11. Banana pudding. I LOVE banana pudding. But it has to be truly home-made, and you have to use 'Nilla Wafers. And put uh-rang-a-tang (meringue) on top. It's even good warm. Or for breakfast. Yum.
Okay. I know I've left out some of the best things about living here. The weather, the long blooming season, the people, there are millions of things that make us the luckiest people on earth. I know this. I don't have to live here. I choose to live here.
What are your favorite things about the South? Make me remember.
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