Being Southern

It seems that a lot of people have trouble with southern accents, traditions and our way of life. Therefore this page will be all things southern in my life.

The North has double last names, The South has double first names. {My son's first name is Jon-Erik}

The North has Indy car races, The South has stock car races.

If you do settle in the South and bear children, don't think we will accept them as Southerners. After all, if the cat had kittens in the oven, we wouldn't call 'em biscuits.

If you run your car into a ditch, don't panic. Four men in a four-wheel drive pickup truck with 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.

Naked- is you got your clothes off. Nekkid-means you got your clothes off and your up to somethin'.

Get used to hearing "You ain't from round here, are ya?"

Be advised that "He needed kill'n" is a valid defense here.

All true Southerners, even babies, know that "Gimme some sugar" is not a request for the white, granular sweet substance that sits in a pretty little bowl on the middle of the table

Only a true Southerner both knows and understands the difference between a redneck, a good ol' boy, and po' white trash.

A true Southerner knows that "fixin'" can be used as a noun, a verb, or an adverb. (As in, I was fixin to go over to BettyLou's. Or, we had a huge Christmas dinner with all the fixins. Or, are you fixin my car next?).

Only true Southerners make friends while standing in lines. We don't do "queues", we do "lines," and when we're IN, not ON, line we talk to everybody

Down here you can say what you want about folks, as long as you follow it with a "Bless it's heart".

My daughter is a true G.R.I.T.S. {girl raised in the south}. She is the only female I can recall in my family that, at the drop of a hat, can cry, faint, or argue her way out of anything. The fainting spells we worked out by telling people "She's all right, she will come to when she get's her breath". She has her daddy wrapped so tight around her finger that it is ready to fall off. All she has to do is pucker up, squinch her eyes together and holler "DAAADDDDYYY!" She calls her daddy "Fat Boy" our boys (20 & 24) just shake their heads and question how she get's away with the same things they would have got their heads slapped off for.

She tells me that when she get's married (currently 11 yrs old} that she is marrying a wimp that she can boss around.

My kin' on my daddy's side, the Hilliard's, seem to be outlaws {bless their hearts}. I've got uncles who would run shine {deliver moonshine} and do their best to try to have each other put in jail. You will have to visit my genealogy page to get the best stories. My great-grandaddy told my great-grandmother that he was going to town to buy her a stove and it took him 6 months to get back. He decided while he was in town {Georgia} to go to Texas. {That's a fact with my hand up}. I also found out they were cousins, their daddy's was half brothers. It seems my gr-gr-grandmother didn't want ot give up her widow's pension when her husband died in the civil war, so instead of marrying her 2nd husband they lived together and had 5 kids.

We sometimes put gravy on out grits, cuz it taste real good. The best gravy is always made from sausage or bacon grease. Just fry up some sausage or gravy and when it get's done take the meat out of the pan and leave the grease in. Sprinkle in a couple of table spoons (not the measuring kind, the eatin kind} of self-rising flour and use a whisk to mix it up. You can't make good gravy without a whisk. When it get's kind of think start pouring in whole milk {not skim, 2% or soy} just a little at a time until it get's thin, whisk it again until it starts getting thick then add more milk. Don't overdo the milk or it will get thin and thin gravy will not stay on a biscuit. Measurements you say, no true southern cook uses measurements. My boy's can make biscuits from scratch and don't even own measuring cups.