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A Little Redneck A Lot Southern

While you may not live there now a Yankee is anyone not from Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, parts of Missouri... and possibly Oklahoma and West-by-God-Virginia. A Southerner, of course, is from one of those states. A Yankee may become an Honorary Southerner, but a Southerner can't become a Yankee, assuming any Southerner wanted to.

If you want to be sure, take this True Test Of Your Southern-ness... If you only muster 2 or 3 questions answered correctly, go get some civilized help. If you are a Yankee and planning on visiting the South or becoming an Honorary Southerner there are a few things you should know that will help you adapt to the differences in lifestyles:

1. First, you need to learn this song sung by Waylon Jennings. Dukes of Hazzard

2. If you run your car into a ditch, don't panic. Four men in a four-wheel drive pickup truck with a 12 pack of beer and a tow chain will be along shortly. Don't try to help them, just stay out of their way. This is what they live for.

3. Don't be surprised to find movie rentals, ammunition and bait in the same store. Do not buy food at this store.

4. Save all manner of bacon grease. You will be instructed later how to use it.

5. Remember, "ya'll" is singular, "all ya'll" is plural, and "all ya'll's" is plural possessive.

6. Get used to hearing "You ain't from around here, are ya?"

7. You may hear a Southerner say "Ought!" to a dog or child. This is short for "Ya'll oughta not do that!" and is the equivalent of saying "No!"

8. Don't be worried at not understanding what people are saying. They can't understand you either.

9. The first Southern expression to creep into a Yankee's vocabulary is the adjective "big'ol," as in "big'ol truck" or "big'ol boy." Most Yankees begin their Southern-influenced dialect this way. All of them are in denial about it.

10. The proper pronunciation you learned in school is no longer proper.

11. Be advised that "He needed killin" is a valid defense here.

12. If you hear a Southerner exclaim, "Hey, ya'll, watch this," stay out of the way. These are likely to be the last words he'll ever say.

13. If there is the prediction of the slightest chance of even the smallest accumulation of snow, your presence is required at the local grocery store. It doesn't matter whether you need anything or not. You just have to go there.

14. Just because you can drive on snow and ice does not mean we can. Stay home the two days of the year it snows.

15. When you come up on a person driving 15 mph down the middle of the road, remember that most folks learn to drive on a John Deere, and that this is the proper speed and position for that vehicle.

16. In the South, we have found that the best way to grow a lush, green lawn is to pour gravel on it and call it a driveway.

17. Don't ever assume that the car with the flashing turn signal is actually going to make a turn.

18. The best gesture of solace for a neighbor who's got trouble is a plate of hot fried chicken and a big bowl of cold 'tater salad. (If the trouble is a real crisis, they also know to add some hot biscuits and "nanner puddin'.)

19. Do not be surprised to find that 10-year-olds own their own shotguns, they are proficient marksmen, and their mammas taught them how to aim.

And Remember:

20. If you do become an Honorary Southerner and bear children, don't think we will accept them right off. After all, if the cat had kittens in the oven, we wouldn't call 'em biscuits. They'll have to qualify on their own.

Thanks to Dick Stone for sending this to me, a great guy with a checkered past. Dick's been trying to live in Texas for the past few years, even though he's a true Wisconsin "you betcha" Yankee. And if you're wondering: You Know You're From Wisconsin When...

You might still be a Yankee if... You think barbecue is a verb meaning "to cook outside." You think Heinz Ketchup is SPICY. You don't have any problems pronouncing "Worcestershire sauce" correctly. For breakfast, you would prefer potatoes au gratin to grits. You don't know what a moon pie is. You've never had grain alcohol. You've never, ever, eaten Okra. You eat fried chicken with a knife and fork. You have no idea what a polecat is. You never understand any of the off color farm jokes involving animals. You don't see anything wrong with putting a sweater on a poodle. You don't have bangs. You would rather vacation at Martha's Vineyard than Six Flags. More than two generations of your family have been kicked out of the same prepschool in Connecticut. You would rather have your son become a lawyer than grow up to get his own TV fishing show. Instead of referring to two or more people as "y'all," you call them "you guys," even if both of them are women. You don't think Howard Stern has an accent. You have never planned your summer vacation around a gun-and-knife show. You think more money should go to important scientific research at your university than to pay the salary of the head football coach. You don't have at least one can of WD-40 somewhere around the house. The last time you smiled was when you prevented someone from getting on the highway on-ramp. You don't have any hats in your closet that advertise feed stores. The farthest south you've ever been is the perfume counter at Neiman Marcus. You call binoculars opera glasses. You can't spit out the car window without pulling over to the side of the road and stopping. You would never wear pink or an applique sweatshirt. You don't know what applique is. Most of your formative high school sexual experiences did not take place within the context of a football game. You don't know anyone with two first names (i.e. Joe Bob, Billy Bob, Kay Bob, Bob Bob) You have doilies, and you certainly know how to make them. You've never been to a craft show. You get freaked out when people on the subway talk to you. You can't do your laundry without quarters. None of your fur coats are homemade. You think Red Man is some kind of Indian. You think Dreamland is a place you go while your sleeping. You think an 8 pointer is the amount of violations on your driver's license. Or ... You've heard yourself say... Oh I just couldn't, she's only sixteen. We don't keep firearms in this house. I'll take Shakespeare for 1000, Alex. Has anybody seen the sideburn trimmer? Duct tape won't fix that. You can't feed that to the dog. Come to think of it, I'll have a Heineken. I thought Graceland was tacky. No kids in the back of the pick-up, it's not safe. Wrasslin's fake. Honey, did you mail that donation to Greenpeace? We're vegetarians. Do you think my gut (hair) is too big? Honey, we don't need another dog. Who gives a crap who won the Civil War? I'll have grapefruit instead of biscuits and gravy. Honey, these bonsai trees need watering? Give me the small bag of pork rinds. Deer heads detract from the decor. Spitting is such a nasty habit. I just couldn't find a thing at Wal-Mart today. Trim the fat off that steak. Cappuccino tastes better than espresso. The tires on that truck are too big. I'll have the arugula and radicchio salad. I've got it all on a floppy disk. Unsweetened tea tastes better. Would you like your fish poached or broiled? My fiancee, Paula Jo, is registered at Tiffany's. I've got two cases of Zima for the Super Bowl. Little Debbie snack cakes have too many fat grams. Checkmate. She's too old to be wearing that bikini. Does the salad bar have any bean sprouts? Hey, here's an episode of "Hee Haw" that we haven't seen. I don't have a favorite college team. I believe you cooked those beans too long. Those shorts ought to be a little longer, Darlin'. Be sure to bring my salad dressing on the side. Nope, no more for me. I'm drivin' tonight.

Mason-Dixon Line

Lines on maps may be drawn by engineers, but they are interpreted by political events. Seldom has history recorded an amicable and abiding acceptance of such demarcations when they involve restless dynastic movements, whether the example be Pope Alexander VI’s division of the New World in 1493 between Spain and Portugal, or the twentieth century’s unhappy establishment of the border between East and West Berlin after World War II. The surveyor’s work becomes a symbol, and his name may become a catch phrase for a congeries of political and social issues of which he never dreamed.

The prime illustration of such an event in the United States is the line laid out for a total of about 332 miles by two English astronomer-surveyors between 1763 and 1767, to settle a dispute between the Penns and the Baltimores. For more than eighty years these powerful proprietaries had contended over the precise location of their common border. When they finally settled upon these two scientists to direct an impersonal, mathematically dependable survey, they set the stage for an engineering feat of impressive dimensions for that time.

But Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon were destined to be remembered for their substantial engineering and scientific accomplishments only in the annals of specialists. Mason, among other things, later completed a catalogue of 387 stars, which, when incorporated into a nautical almanac published in 1787, became the standard authority on the subject for a number of years. Dixon, a county surveyor and amateur astronomer, was considered sufficiently adept in his field to be elected to the Royal Society. He took part in several overseas scientific expeditions for the Society.”

For considerably more than a century, however, what the average American has understood by the Mason-Dixon survey has been a figurative division between two frames of reference in national life. Just as the South—and, for that matter, the North—tended to become a state of mind, so the Mason-Dixon Line has come to be viewed only incidentally as a real border and more as a line of transition between these two states of mind. In the national psychology it is thought of as a jagged extension of the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland to some vaguely defined point on the Missouri-Kansas border.

Just when this popular concept first took shape is not easy to say. Obviously, as sectional consciousness in the matter of slavery increased in the first half of the nineteenth century, the fact that Maryland, the most northerly slave state, was divided from Pennsylvania’s free soil by the Mason-Dixon survey impressed itself upon the public mind. The Ohio River, as the border between the southern state of Kentucky and the Northwest Territory, where slavery was prohibited, was a natural landmark extending the symbolism of the Mason-Dixon Line, the western terminus of which lay close to that great waterway to the West. Finally, the Missouri Compromise, fixing the northern limit of slave territory at latitude 36 degrees 30 minutes north, westward from the Ohio’s juncture with the Mississippi, completed the popular image.

The issues which thus developed in the nineteenth century around Mason and Dixon’s survey, and made their names a household phrase, have largely obscured the significant political and scientific results of the original project. That project—a border settlement of the eighteenth century—in turn traced its beginnings to issues which arose in the seventeenth century, and even earlier. The problem really started with England’s belated decision to launch her own colonizing efforts in the New World, where Spain and Portugal had long preceded her and where she now found the Netherlands, Sweden, and France in close competition.

The stereotype of the South is as tenacious as it is familiar: a traditionally rebellious region which has made a dogma of states’ rights and a religious order of the Democratic party. Here indeed is a monotonous and unchanging tapestry, with a pattern of magnolia blossoms, Spanish moss, and the inevitable old plantations running ceaselessly from border to border.

Such is the mythical image, and a highly inaccurate one it is, for the South is a region of immense variety. Its sprawling landscape ranges from the startlingly red soil of Virginia and North Carolina to the black, sticky clay of the Delta; from the wild and primitive mountain forests of eastern Kentucky to the lush, jungle-like swamps of southern Louisiana; from the high, dry, wind-swept plains of the Texas Panhandle to the humid tidelands of the South Carolina coast. An environment so diverse can be expected to produce social and political differences to match, and in fact, it always has.

Today we have come to recognize increasingly the wide variety of attitudes that exist in the region. But this denial of the southern stereotype is a relatively new development, even among historians. For too long the history of the region has been regarded as a kind of unbroken plain of uniform opinion. This is especially true of what has been written about the years before the Civil War; a belief in states’ rights, the legality of secession, and the rightfulness of slavery has been accepted almost without question as typical of southern thought. In a sense, such catch phrases do represent what many southerners have believed; but at the same time there were many others who both denied the legality of secession and denounced slavery. It is time this “other South” was better known.

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