Actually, I don't even own a pair of overalls...

An early inspiration for Tony C Today.







I've been known to poke a little fun at my own southern culture from time to time on this blog...

Yes. It's true. Now that doesn't mean I'm not proud to be from the South, or God's country as we like to refer to it here. Having lived a number of different places outside the South in my life, I completely understand why people from other parts of the country are moving here in droves. What does surprise me though is the apparent disappointment that occurs when carperbag...I'm mean people not from the South arrive and find it's not what they completely expected.

Let me elaborate please...

While it's true people in the South are overall generally resistant to change, we do actually have electricity and running water in our homes. Shocking to some...I'm sure. We actually graduated from the wood-stove heated log cabin some years back (although we keep a few around for purely historical reference and as hunting lodges), and the outhouse is a distant memory. Southerners now commonly use the porcelain throne like most other Americans...though if we're outside, we still often pee in the backyard so not to track dirt in on the rug going in the house. Makes perfect sense to us.

Not only do we have shopping malls, they actually contain stores like Gap, Abercrombie and Pottery Barn. Granted Sears and J.C. Penney's are usually mall anchors, but we don't just go there for the catalog anymore. Wait...that's my second outhouse reference in only my second overall point. Oh well. Bathroom humor is funny wherever you live...except maybe Antarctica.

Southerners think much faster than we talk. Is that such a bad thing?  We also coined the phrase shoot first and ask questions later...so don't say you haven't been warned.

Not everyone from the South listens to Elvis music and goes to a Baptist church. Okay. So maybe I do both, but I have plenty of Episcopalian friends that listen to Coldplay...or what's his name...Usher! No. We're typically not very good liars either, because living here is hot enough...and hell is rumored to much hotter!

That's just a few of the stereotypical ideas people who move to the South are often disappointed or even confused not to find when they arrive...explaining why we're often now referred to as the Newer South.

Just a quick history review, the New South was post Civil War...the Newer South is post Hee Haw.

By the way, hee haw is onomatopoeia for the sound a donkey makes, but very few people actually own farm animals of any kind here...although my cousin does own a llama.  Bet now I've really blown your mind...