A tall cool glass of nostalgia

I happened to be drinking sweet tea at the time...
"The time of what?" y'all might ask. Well, at the time of looking at my latest Southern Living magazine, which I haven't taken the time to make time for. That's what time. And now that I have taken the time, it has cured me of my doldrums and provided a dose of nostalgia strong enough to make me want to book a flight to Hotlanta- ASAP. That's a bittersweet and painful longing that can't be satisfied in the immediate future. So, bear with me, will you? I'd be much obliged. Thankyuh.

Here's how it went down. The April 2006 editors (bless their hearts) came up with a list of 40 things that make a person a genuine Southerner. Now, they included experiences in regions beyond my stomping grounds, so I will only comment on a few. After all, in the deep south, we considered TX to be part of the west, and D.C.-- definitely the north. They talked about how cultured we are, how outdoorsy, thrill-seeking, story-telling, and partying. We love to dance and have good times with family and friends. We love to shop. We are music-loving and music-making, historic, and mannerly. I reckon I can appreciate all those (a lot), but let me expound on some other specifics of who we are, where we go and what we do:

SL's #6 Life's a Beach
The region boasts some of the most magnificent stretches of sand and sea that the nation has to offer.

In all my growing-up years vacation meant going to the beach, and most often that was the Gulf coast, on the panhandle of northern Florida. Intense heat, sunburn, and sand spurs couldn't keep us away. White sand with the consistency of spun-sugar, sea oats blowing in the breeze, riding a raft to shore on a small warm water wave, fishing from a pier or casting in the surf, crabbing with nets and chicken-neck baits, riding the rides on the "Miracle Strip", walking the beach in search of shells--these are my memories. They evoke such associations I can see it (eyes squinting from the brightness,) feel it (hot enough to melt flip flops,) and taste it (some of the best plates of fried seafood and hush-puppies I've ever had.) When I moved to CA I was surprised the beach could be so different from what I knew each summer. Beautiful, but different.

SL's #7 Just Veggies Please
When it comes to understanding Southern food, you need to appreciate the vegetable plate.

This one is close to my heart. For the love of me, I can't figure why the rest of the country doesn't get it. On the plate, for me, may or may not be a rich homemade tasting mac and cheese, but will almost always have crisp fried okra, squash casserole, and cornbread. The variables I rotate in are greens, black-eyed peas, green beans, and other seasonal choices. When my husband asks where I want to go to dinner, I always say, "Somewhere with vegetables." This makes it very difficult for us to reach a decision in Colorado where I have lived for the last 18 years. He hates serving himself at a salad bar and I hate to settle for lettuce and croutons. I could get by with fresh sliced ripe tomatoes and cucumbers, but there is no such thing here except for two weeks at the end of summer. I do have a wonderfully generous neighbor who shares his harvest with us then.

SL's #8 Drink to this
We all know that icy concoctions are the toast of the South...
Atlanta gave us Coke (pronounced Co-Cola)...
Still, as they pointed out in Steel Magnolias, the "house wine of the South" is sweet tea.

All I can tell you is that it is not seasonal and nothing else can touch it to quench a thirst or a mood. It must be sweetened while hot. Taken with lemon is optional, but best. I thank God that Chic Fil-A moved in up the street so I don't always have to make my own. Bless their hearts.

SL's #11 Look and Listen
America's greatest music started in the South. We have contributed more to the cultural soundtrack than any other part of the country. Jazz, country, bluegrass, gospel, blues, and rock music were born here.

I embrace all of it and have some of all genres in my own collection. But, growing up it was rock, soul, and country that I heard the most. I despised country (that was my daddy's music) til I got to college and Linda Ronstadt and other cross-over groups brought it in. Then I went for Emmy Lou and Dolly and the rest followed. For fun in high school we went to dances with live bands all the time, knew every word to every song, and hardly ever did anything without the music playing on our radios or stereos (What, no iPods?) I saw the Allman Bros. and others live. Now I mostly prefer to hear live jazz. I don't think I could separate the soul of the South from its music.

SL's #13 Behave Yourself
...it's time to address your Southern manners. Show everybody your mama raised you right. Remember the golden phrases and rules: yes, ma'am; no, ma'am; thank you, ma'am; and please.
Always keep a casserole at the ready--friends could pop over (or pass away) at any time. Pull over when you see a funeral procession. And, hats off in the house--and always when we salute Old Glory.

When I moved away from Georgia I thought people were rude and unfriendly for not stopping by to visit. At our house great value was placed on hospitality, and it was a given that guests would drop by. We hoped that they would also be persuaded to stay for dinner. My mother always managed to set out a great-tasting and enjoyable meal and seemed disappointed if the visitors left before eating. Young people showed respect for older people in lots of ways. You didn't interrupt your grandmother or play your music loud around your parents. If you said, "Yeah," instaed of "Yes, sir," you were trying to be rude and asking for trouble. Makes me want to shake my head and mutter, "Um, um, umph" as I think about the changes I've seen. Lawdy, Lawdy. Raising boys outside of the South did not yield the same results.

SL's #15 Bright and Beautiful
Most Southern gardeners brighten their yards with camellias in winter and with brilliant azaleas and flowering dogwoods in the spring. Each summer they tend hydrangeas and crepe myrtles.
No Southern garden is complete without daylilies.

This is a minimalist approach compared to the yard my dad keeps. In fact for the last 30 years he has kept two yards immaculate and filled with an ever-changing canvas of color, foliage, and texture. He's gone through passions for wild azaleas, designer daylilies (including a collection that matches the names of those in our extended family,) hedges, no hedges, camelias, rock gardens, water gardens, banks of ferns of graduated levels, and the eternal pristinely manicured grass and shrubs. He has raked five tons of pine straw and trucked it up to the lakehouse for mulching the beds and surfacing the driveway. He has dug everything up and re-positioned it to a different side of the yard. I can't separate home from garden. I have become obsessive about gardening, myself, and look forward all year to when Daddy comes to help in my yard.

SL's #20 Order Up
To get to some of the best Southern dives, you may have to crunch through a gravel parking lot or duck through a screen door, but inside waits something sinfully good, such as chili-cheese fries at Eskimo Joe's...(etc.) Still, top honors go to the "naked dog" (plain hot dog) and crispy onion rings at the Varsity in Atlanta.

Let me just say that we had a Varsity in Athens, GA where I went to college and I am no stranger to the lingo of the loudly barked calls: "Drop me a ring, give me two dogs walking, a glorified steak, and a big C!" The most amazing part of it (at the Atlanta establishment) was to see inside the kitchen watch the talented women who could peel and slice the overly large onions in about 3 quick motions. I have never grasped how it could be done. Another fine memory is of fresh, still hot, Krispy Kreme doughnuts just-dipped in chocolate that we jut had to taste before we could even get back into the car to drive home.

SL's #40 'Cue--Enough Said
When we say barbecue, we mean meat.
..mustard-basted pulled pork, dry-rubbed ribs, vinegar-and-ketchup topping, white sauce... (etc.)

Beef, pork, and sometimes chicken. Pit-cooked, smoked, basted. If it has barbecue sauce on it, it's goo-ood. One of my goals each time I head south is to have some fine barbecue. In Denver, barbecue means to grill food outside. Not so down home. Say "barbecue" and you can taste the flavor in your mouth. It's not a verb. It's the tangy, spicey sauce, slow-cooked on the meat. And the expected fixings on the side are baked beans, fried potatoes, cole slaw, and sometimes Brunswick stew.

I noticed that 9 out of 40 of SL's listings were about food and drink. That's because we take dining seriously. Food and eating together is an important part of the culture. Letters from my mom never fail to include what she fixed (prepared) for company or what they ate at somebody else's house. I miss that. My local culture supports meeting for coffee, or at best, dining at a restaurant. Sometimes there's nothing better than being together at each other's home and making do with a meal of what food we can find to put together.

Thanks Southern Living for reminding me of 40 things that signify the South. Though I didn't touch on the history, the architecture, the literature, the beautful sights of the region, the fanatical interest in college sports, or the famous annual events, I enjoyed your coverage of them. I would have to add a couple of other categories to satisfy my own personal historic slice of Southern-ness:

Reel Em In
Fishing has always been part of life. The proximity to big lakes, small ponds and creeks made it easy to go fishing if we wanted to grab a pole, a rod, some worms and head out. I happened to like it--no, love it-- so I have fished off and on (maybe a little less so in teen years.) I rarely caught anything sizeable, so I think it's the process, pace, and "zen" of it I liked, even as a kid. I know bass fishing with the fast boat and fish locater is big business down there, but so is a cane pole with a bobber propped on the dock railing. We never thought about catch and release. It was catch all you can and freeze a mess of them if you had too many for dinner. I would have a little meditation time at the lake every day now if I could.

Hunt Em Down

No, I didn't hunt, but I think most guys knew something about it. Bird dogs, shotgun shells, the vests, boots, duck calls, and other paraphnelia would appeal to me if I weren't such a Bambi-lover. Having a soft spot for animals meant our yard was filled with a menagerie of wild and less wild things: a skunk, a squirrel, a rabbit, quail, turtles, ducks, tadpoles, tropical fish, a parakeet, a collie, and several cats. Because of the temperate clime, all of these lived out of doors. Quite a contrast to Colorado, where pets seem to only venture outside the houses of their owners when they are leashed and taken for a walk. There is quite a hunting culture here, too, but not the equivalent. Do they know what, "That dog can hunt" means? Maybe not.

Winter Garden?

The only way those two words go together in Colorado is to describe the structure of the landscape and texture of the remaining brown foliage present after frost hits.It's an important consideration to people like me who work feverishly for a few months a year to try to have a "real" yard with perennials, hard-scaped areas and a bit of lawn. If we don't plan for how our garden winters over, we have nothing to look at in the months between October and April. In Georgia, my father is hauling in greens and cool weather crops while I'm here clearing snow off my windshield.

Which brings me to a concluding thought about the weather. The heat of a south Georgia summer is one thing I don't miss. Last July we were visiting, and while our teenaged sons played tennis one night, my husband and I took a walk. The air and the gnats were thick. When we made our loop and got back around to the tennis courts my hair was matted to my head and the boys looked as if they had been in a sauna. We're used to needing a jacket in the evenings, not a swim. I remembered why air conditioning was invented. It was for Southerners.

Southerners--like me.