Y'all Come back now, ya hear?

I was recently sent a link to a blog post which was filled with 'southernisms' and a few phrases that, to an undiscerning ear, don't make sense unless you have stepped off the highway and onto a rural route road in a county below the Mason-Dixon line.

The post was a gentle poke at the language and culture of language that still defines the South as a 'nation all its own'. I wasn't offended by the list, because truthfully, the words and phrases are things I've heard all of my life. The rich and colorful palette of colors painted in a Southern Drawl are something to make a rainbow pale in comparison.


Even in foreign places, a Southern accent is recognized as an anomaly. Regardless of which of the U.S. States you visit, a magnolia and honeysuckle tinted voice is identifiable as a reminder of someplace very different than the rest of the world.

It's no wonder people from all over the world TRY to sound Southern. Most of them miserably fail in the attempt, but at least they are trying to connect to something good and fine.

I have seen Hollywood portrayals that fall short of reality when it comes to speaking the language of the South. They mean well most of the time, but sometimes they are mean spirited and depict the South as a place where we marry our first cousins, are uneducated hillbillies, all chew tobacco from the time we are born and live in a dwelling that either has wheels or should be condemned due to our laziness in keeping it up.

I'm rather amazed at that particular type of jibe since the folks at NASA are pretty beholden to a bunch of 'redneck engineers' that came into the space program to work with Dr. Wehrner von Braun and gently lit the candle that sent a man to the moon.

While it's true that there are a few people more interested in moonshine than space flight, the fact is, either way, through engineering or corn squeezings, somebody's gonna get launched by nightfall.

We have beautiful homes (with and without wheels), we love our families and we go to church more often than just for weddings, funerals, Easter and Christmas. We have bluegrass bands and rock and roll. We enjoy baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolets. Big trucks with mud tires are a staple and many a farmer has a hidden college degree in something that he's just to well-bred to brag about.

Speaking the phrases that are like mother's milk to the residents who are blessed enough to be here in God's Country is a gift. We have a language that is set apart from all others. If it were not so, why would so many people try to emulate it, whether that copycatting is done in jest or in praise of the South?

But just knowing the words isn't enough...we have transplants who haven't yet learned that.

Coming to the South to become a resident, you have to learn that a slower pace is a GOOD thing. Too many people from other places bring an outsider's timetable with them from other areas and it disturbs them greatly when it isn't met here.

Although some Yankee practices have crept in, vigilance keeps most things out that interfere with the quiet, contemplative lifestyle that brings ease and peace to a troubled world. And by the way, Yankee is a term to describe ANYONE not from the southern states.

Magnolia trees with fragrant blossoms dot many areas of our community. Passing them on a sidewalk trip to town is a powerful and decadent experience for the olfactory senses which are daily assaulted by the unpleasantness and grime of daily living.

To smell the jasmine and honeysuckle and to feel the moist, warm breeze is to step back into the gentle graces of a place where "yes ma'am" and "yes sir" are still taught to youngsters as a gracious hospitality and show of respect to one's elders, not a reminder of subervience.

Walking to the "Creme Delight" on a warm evening and strolling through the Courthouse Square while the bluegrass band plays a selection is to remove your time piece and learn to feel your own heart beating again in a relaxed pace set to the rhythm of the band.

Oh, the lessons of "Y'allbonics" goes to a much richer and deeper place than simply speaking the language. Indeed, to speak is only the introduction to a life rich and full with the anticipation of all things small town and hospitably companionable in the Deep South.

If you need a break from the hectic pace of life and have never ventured below the Mason-Dixon line, this is the place to escape it all. And if it's been a while since you managed a trip here for the Fiddler's Convention the first weekend in October, get it on your calendar now.

In the words of my folks and family from 'way back, "Y'all come back now, ya hear?"

It Sounded Like A Good Idea at the Time

I like spicy food. The richness of flavor, the aroma that reaches out to tantalize and tingle the taste buds, the way that it settles down with a little fire into your tummy. OOOOOH! What a great meal!

The beans were just right. The crackers sublime. The spice just a bit on the wild side.

But the backlash was all junkyard dog. On those rare occasions where spice isn't nice, there comes the agony of repeat. I have the unfortunate and unladylike habit of burping that comes back to bite me with a vengeance at these moments when the burp is a bit more than just hot air. I am compelled in these circumstances to commiserate with Gollum "It burns us! It burns us!"

Hot, molten lava shot up through my throat and into my left nostril and Eustachian tube. If I had never felt pain before this moment, it would be enough to convince a sane person never to indulge in any spicy additives again. But who said I was sane? It's an evil rumor started by someone who was just jealous that the voices are talking to me instead of them!

I swear, the feeling of the lava was speeding through my Eustachian tube and trickling directly and deliberately onto my left skull plate in the occipital region was a repeat of what Herculaneum must have enjoyed. I could feel the heat through my skin. My left eye, and only my left eye, began to water like Niagara had stopped in for a visit and the fire in my left nostril roasted out the mucous membranes so that I am quite sure that neither will ever be totally whole again.

The back of my throat is now chapped raw. Sandpaper wouldn't have been any more abrasive. I swear that I didn't put that much hot sauce on the beans! Well, maybe just a few teensy shakes of the bottle. It was really much less than usual. I'm sure of it.

But, in this quasi-Shakespearean tragedy that my indulgence has produce, the agony most definitely didn't match the ecstasy. What started out as a pleasant, tingly repast has turned into a pit of fire and brimstone that would make Mephistopheles shrink from the flames. Coward!

WHY do I do this to myself? And why in the hell do I forget from one inferno to the next that I created this monster? Instead of a benevolent and homespun Julia Child-like meal of tenderness and love, I'm more like Frankenstein's child with the spice rack as my accomplice in a masterwork of death and destruction. And I am quite sure I melted a couple of keys on my keyboard with the initial blast. The letters are missing from the "S" and the "A" keys entirely.

One wonders if that is a Freudian slip to keep my subconscious from recognising that the combination of the two handily spells out "ASS" when applied appropriately. I question 'What the great Doctor make of that conundrum?'

In any event, the right hand drawer of my desk is stocked with some mint flavor Rolaids. It's not that they taste like mint. They don't. In reality, they taste like chalk that a 90-year-old school teacher with stockings rolled down to just below the knee would have carried around in her purse snuggled up right next to a bottle of camphor. Maybe slightly better. But not much. The reason I keep them in the drawer isn't so much for their flavor. It's for their fire extinguishing ability.

The icky, chalky taste coats my tongue like so much whitewash and I've begun to feel like all of those suckers that Tom Sawyer roped into painting Aunt Polly's fence.
While the fence might have needed to be painted, there must have been better ways.

I think Vesuvius has begun to subside. The firetrail in my left occipital region is down to a brush fire being peed on by a squirrel to put it out. Eventually my nostril will regain its feeling and, in time, this painful episode of insanity will become a dim memory. I will resume eating food without dipping my tongue into a cup of ice water. I will experience the joy of tasting the flavor of my food again. And one day, I will rejoice in the normal process of digestion that flows in only ONE direction.

Until the next time...

Happy trails, happy campers. And remember, only YOU can prevent forest fires!

LOL

Perhaps we need a prescription.

Okay, Rx - Laugh out loud. Repeat as needed. Use at least once daily.

Too many people walk around with long, sad faces that would make Eeyore look cheerful by comparison.

Whatever happened to the laughter that makes our life more pleasant and certainly gives us a much needed break from the reality that is crowding in on us at an alarmingly frequent pace?

I stopped by the nursing home to visit a friend yesterday, only to discover she was at an appointment with her medical team and wasnt' expected back until much later. But in the interim, as I was loping along through the endless maze of hallways, a tiny old woman in a wheelchair asked me to come close to her. I did so.

In a whispery voice, she told me a joke. It was cute. One of those things your kids brings home from school in about the 2nd grade. But I appreciated the emotion behind it. She found it funny and wanted to share the laughter. So we laughed together.

I was doing some research on the internet last night and came across a now defunct blog. There are no entries past late 2008. It's a shame, because I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe.

Then there is the book a friend just loaned me. In case you haven't snorted milk out of your nostrils lately, you are missing out on a good read. I laughed until the tears began to flow.

We have a lot in our lives that compels us to be serious. Things press upon us that need to be sorted through and responsibilities of all stripes are necessary to get the substance of life accomplished, gathered and used.

But without laughter, the ride is awfully dull.

The following comes from the defunct blog "dustbunnies" and is included in the interest of laughter. The article is entitled "PERSEID ESCAPADES" and is dated August 15, 2007.

To see this year's Perseid meteor shower, we loaded up the van and drove far from the city lights at 1 am. Most of the kids protested sleepily, but Rudolph the Wonder Dog was ready to go. Even if he did cower under hubby's legs while driving.

We stopped at a dark field and set up our camera equipment. Rudolph is a Weimeraner, which means "hunter of small furry animals and shoes" in German. So he disappeared into the brush while we peered up at the sky for meteors.

Ten minutes later, he was back, dragging a large stick. Rudolph dropped it at my feet.

I picked it up and tossed it back into the brush. He brought it back. Bored with stargazing, Heidi picked it up and started playing fetch with him.

Half an hour later, we called the shower a bust, and piled back into the van.

Back home, I started shuffling kids to bed. Rudolph dropped the stick at my feet, tail wagging.

It was a dried up deer leg.

Who knows what the neighbors were thinking, with all the lights on at our house at 2am, with a figure screaming through the house, "Dead deer leg! Dead deer leg!"

But really. They should be used to this sort of thing by now.

Proof

We are not crazy, although on the surface it may SEEM like we are. But in our defense it sounded like a good idea at the time.

Beth got tickets for us to see Sugarland. WOO HOO!! When purchasing the tickets, I am quite sure visions of sunny skies and comfortable breezes filled her head. I know that's what I thought about when she told me about the concert.

The assembled revelers: Beth, Pete, Kari, Julie and me. Mayhem in a moment, at your service. But you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men. Or wice and women...I must tell you here and now that in the deepest portion of the cockles of my heart that I believe that rain is a wonderful thing...unless you are going to an outdoor concert. Then, without sufficient preparations, you are going to get wet.

With sufficient preparations you are going to get soaked.

Yes, you read that right.

Umbrellas, ponchos, and baseball caps for those who have already enjoyed outside events in the rain, and a folding seat that we each apparently brought for the sole purpose of sitting down in a puddle and then, when our hind ends were wet enough to look like we missed a bathroom somewhere along the way, folding the chair up and standing to sing and dance the night away.

These are all hallmarks of a great night. If you don't have anything with which you can threaten blackmail of your accomplices, you wasted your time. And what is more blackmailable than wet pants?

Sanity?

I hear you questioning it now. The truth is, you have to be a little insane to realize the value of going out in pneumonia provoking weather to see a concert anyway. But, when the concert is Sugarland...well...damn the storm clouds and torrential rain - FULL SPEED AHEAD! Admiral Farragut would have gone!

And don't the Redstone Arsenal Army types have just enough of that old 'going to hell in a handbasket' attitude to pull this off? Hooah!! I CAN'T HEAR YOU, MAGGOT!! DROP AND GIVE ME 50!! Kiss that mud!! HOOAH!!!! So, with that firmly in mind, we went!

Since Beth arrived early enough that she staked out and held our location against all invaders foreign and domestic in prime real estate in front of the stage, the rest of the 'wild bunch' could arrive a bit later.

But then the heavens opened and flooded my front yard and portions of the road. Phone calls from concerned participants came in...YES! We are still going. Yes we are on the way!! If we have to deploy the canoes from their berths in the trailer, we are going to this concert! I happen to have a very smooth J-stroke. If you don't canoe, I'll explain it to you later. If you do canoe, you should be impressed because I learned it in a girl's camp with a bunch of whiners around who didn't want to get wet and the water was only three feet deep! Trust me when I tell you that by the end of the night...the mud was deeper.

Pete called me earlier to tell us wild women that he would drive us all over and get us into one of the regular military gates instead of parking in the morass of people waiting to get into the civilian lineup at the designated entry point. Since he has a DOD sticker on his vehicle, he is a privileged character who used his privilege to benefit three crazy women from the great unwashed, militarily speaking. He earned his P.C. status the hard way - in service to our country with bullets flying. Tonight, the most we had to fear was flying beer flagons and fists.

On our way over, Beth called me on my cell phone to ask where we were. She asked ME that. Sure, go ahead and laugh now. Where are we...we're on the highway. So there, Beth. And you thought I didn't have any useful directional information while on the road.

We had to show our ID when we arrived at the gate to get into the installation minus any nasty bullet wounds for entering government property unannounced, namely our ugly driver's licenses, to get on base. I believe Kari won the ugly photo contest hands down. All license photos seem to be taken while you are talking, blinking or looking stupid, but once in a while you get lucky and get a decent photo. Julie got lucky on hers. My own looks like a prison photo.

Pete and I discussed the relative merits of telling the guard at gate 9 that we were ALL his wives and then accuse him of being an un-understanding Gentile if he thought that was odd. We had a nice joke about the relative merits of polygamy on our way in. It would have been funnier if we had been in Beth's truck since she has an LDS sticker on the back...and you know how them danged Mormons are about their multiple wives...

The walk up to the gates to 'heaven' was pretty quick since Pete parked the car in a spot just a few blocks from the designated ticket takers. I must confess that I was astonished to see so many people arriving without rain gear, and more than a few without adequate clothing.

I get cold when I am soaking wet. Perhaps it's a thyroid thing...but I digress.

So, as we are approaching the entry point to the concert, Beth calls Pete to tell him where she is and how we are to proceed to meet her.

Following her careful instructions, we find her 'encouragingly' removing a usurper from the 'marked blanket area'. This is sacred turf paid for and staked out by a woman who knows how to use weapons and can run fast enough and long enough to chaset away the average lardbutt who hopes to steal prime real estate from what they wrongly assume is a diminutive and possibly weak female.

Watch out, losers, this woman will feed you your entrails for breakfast and ask if you'd like another homemade muffin to go with them!

The crowd mills and surges in and around us and the rain falls. We discover that rain can fall in a 360 direction and soon we are all in various states of rising damp. I begin to appreciate the fact that I am NOT a pioneer in a covered wagon at this point.

Finally, the concert begins with an entre act I've never heard of who sings to us from his San Fransisco roots about all things country. I find that vastly amusing in an odd way.

"Just what part of the farm belt are you from, son?"

"'Frisco, Dad, 'Frisco".

But his music was good and a nice beginning.

Billy Currington came on next and sang a lot of songs I knew but didn't know that he was the one who sang them. I know songs, not necessarily artist. When the whoops and cheering for Billy died down, it became apparent that the rain was continuing on for a while yet, we settled into the routine of trying to keep dry in that relative way that you hope you can when you are standing fully clothed in a shower stall.

Delightfully ripped and muscular military personnel and security guards stood up front to encourage the malefactors of the world into a submissive position. They looked menacing. Which was, of course, the whole point. I don't think I want to tangle with even the woman on their detail. She looked like she could kick butts for breakfast without even breaking a sweat. I never saw her smile. I'm sure she was smiling on the inside. Or not.

The stagehands and crew set up for the main event while we stewed in our ponchos and beneath umbrellas that were alternately tipped or bumped sending a cascade of cool water over either my shoes or my legs. Fortunately for all concerned, I plan to count this as my bath for the week.

But when the first strains of Sugarland's music started up, the screaming and whooping began. And that was just me. I am reasonably sure that Julie went home partially deaf. Perhaps she will recover her hearing by Sunday. I know Beth was screaming because she was beside me and I think we both were giving the decibel meter a run for it's money.

The concert was amazing and eventually the rain slowed to a trickle. Jennifer Nettles is AMAZING and the musical skill of Kristian Bush on a variety of stringed instruments was absolutely ASTOUNDING to watch! It was just totally beyond comprehension that there we were just mere feet from the people who fill my living room with sound when I jack up the volume and sing along in my exercise clothes. They were both excited and energetic as they romped through their music. I sang along and the couple next to me, who seriously should have gotten a room, stared at me as if I was evil. Which of course I am, but they don't know me well enough to stare at me about it. The girl kept making nasty remarks about how I was singing along. Well, DUH!! They ASKED US TO, MISSY!!!

I think they were too busy liplocking and copping a feel to really pay attention to the instructions we were given about joining in anyway. Oooooh baby...kissy kissy.
Why go to the trouble of coming if you aren't going to listen?

So much happened that it would take weeks to combine our memories and recount them all! I remember at one point, I was singing along and looked to see all of our 'murderer's row' singing along. We knew it, but more importantly we FELT the music and the lyrics. It was a kind of bliss that can't be matched by anything else. Not even an entire sleeve of graham crackers - even if you are a cookie pig.

On the way out when it ended, as all concerts sadly do, the mud from both the rain and the churning thousands of feet that trampled it up into a fine quagmire threatened to steal shoes and sandals without discrimination. Since I wore both lawnmowing shoes and the seriously oldest pair of sox I own, I knew straight up that if either was a goner, it was no real loss.


It was everything you hope it will be when you say you are going to see Sugarland! So, sometime, if someone asks you to join them in an opportunity to see a concert outside - GO. If it rains, you'll get wet, but if you don't go, you will indeed regret it.