# Southern Brethren



## jawyman (Feb 21, 2008)

Do you brothers and sisters of the PB that were born and raised south of the Mason-Dixon identify yourselves as Southerners? Is there to this day a Southern identity? I only ask, because my father was born in Alabama and raised in Tennessee and has always considered himself a Southerner. Now with his dementia I am more interested in this side of my life. Can I say I am a Northerner with southern heritage? Thanks y'all


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## RamistThomist (Feb 21, 2008)

Yes and no. I think what we would call the "south" is getting more nebulous in our corporation age. Atlanta, Florida, etc. are no more Southern than Boston. 

But I do consider myself a Southerner by means of local traditions, dialect, heroes, values. But again, this breaks down because others in other parts of the country can identify with some of the above--so I can't come up with a list that is uniquely southern.


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## raekwon (Feb 21, 2008)

Meh. Regional "heritage" is of little value to me. I was (also) born in Alabama, lived most of my life there, and briefly lived in Tennessee . . . but then I've also lived in New Jersey and southern Florida, and now I'm in central Ohio.

So what do I consider myself? Right now, an Ohioan. This is where God's placed me, and he's put a love in my heart for this city. Of course, that could end up changing...


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## Staphlobob (Feb 22, 2008)

I was born & raised in south (Eunice) Louisiana. Everything north of Ville Platte was considered yankee territory. But been in Baltimore since 1980. Being just south of the Mason/Dixon line, the joke here is that Baltimore is a mixture of northern charm and southern sophistication. (The north having no charm and the south no sophistication.) 

However, I'm still southern in my internal identity. I pull for the Saints, make my own gumbo, recognize that racism is prevalent in the north as the south (though more hidden). But my accent is now terribly mangled. People who hear me for the first time ask if I'm from Boston or the Bronx.

I'd love to move south again in retirement. It's slower, more laid back, less populated. I miss that. Here on the east coast it's a megapolis; one huge city from Richmond, VA to Boston, Mass.


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## Pergamum (Feb 22, 2008)

I am a Missouri hillbilly, where does that fit in?


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## Blueridge Believer (Feb 22, 2008)

Ivanhoe said:


> Yes and no. I think what we would call the "south" is getting more nebulous in our corporation age. Atlanta, Florida, etc. are no more Southern than Boston.
> 
> But I do consider myself a Southerner by means of local traditions, dialect, heroes, values. But again, this breaks down because others in other parts of the country can identify with some of the above--so I can't come up with a list that is uniquely southern.


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## Richard King (Feb 22, 2008)

I cook in butter or bacon grease, I sop food with biscuits and I believe in States rights more than management from Washington DC. I think those are the main Southern indicators.

However, I must admit. In Texas you are taught that Texas is a whole 'nuther country.

But sadly TV is killing regional identity. We will all sound the same eventually.


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## Herald (Feb 22, 2008)

If we meet and you asked me where I'm from I'll tell you, "I'm from New Jersey, but I live in Maryland." I've always had an attachment to the North Jersey area (where I was born and raised). I suppose it's that way for some folks that were raised in the South.


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## RamistThomist (Feb 22, 2008)

Southern identity =


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## BobVigneault (Feb 22, 2008)

I was born and raised in SOUTHERN Vermont and now I live in SOUTHERN Wisconsin. I love sweet tea, turnip greens, country fried steak and lumpy mashed potatos with sawmill gravy. Furthermore I think Lincoln was a tyrant and I like mint julips.

Please, please can I be a southerner. If Hillary can be a senator from NY then I don't see why I can't be an honorary southern gentlemen. Thanks y'all.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Feb 22, 2008)

BobVigneault said:


> I was born and raised in SOUTHERN Vermont and now I live in SOUTHERN Wisconsin. I love sweet tea, turnip greens, country fried steak and lumpy mashed potatos with sawmill gravy. Furthermore I think Lincoln was a tyrant and I like mint julips.
> 
> Please, please can I be a southerner. If Hillary can be a senator from NY then I don't see why I can't be an honorary southern gentlemen. Thanks y'all.



If you add GRITS (I married one, btw) to your menu, get yourself a copy of _The Song of the South_ (from Europe), pay an official annual visit to Guinea Station or the Stonewall Jackson statue on the Manassas Battlefield (not to be confused with the Bull Run Battlefield) (I'll take you on a tour myself with pleasure), then you can be an honorary Southron, Bob. We love ya! Y'll come back now, ya hear?


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## jfschultz (Feb 22, 2008)

Ivanhoe said:


> Southern identity =



Hey, you yanks! I'd prefer Anticuchos.


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## govols (Feb 22, 2008)

And in Georgia, you can navigate anywhere from the Big Chicken (eyes and beak moves):


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## lwadkins (Feb 22, 2008)

BobVigneault said:


> I was born and raised in SOUTHERN Vermont and now I live in SOUTHERN Wisconsin. I love sweet tea, turnip greens, country fried steak and lumpy mashed potatos with sawmill gravy. Furthermore I think Lincoln was a tyrant and I like mint julips.
> 
> Please, please can I be a southerner. If Hillary can be a senator from NY then I don't see why I can't be an honorary southern gentlemen. Thanks y'all.



We'll let ya be all things to all people Bob 

I was raised in the Missouri Ozarks, does that make me a hillbilly? 
My sympathies are defiantly southern have lived in Oklahoma City and Austin and think that the move toward a strong federal gov after the north won the War Between the States was disastrous for our country.


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## panta dokimazete (Feb 22, 2008)

Ah, yes...this thread reminds me that I was just passing by the home of the last great president, just the other day...









(joking, joking! - It's an election year, get it? )


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## Herald (Feb 22, 2008)

BobVigneault said:


> I was born and raised in SOUTHERN Vermont and now I live in SOUTHERN Wisconsin. I love sweet tea, turnip greens, country fried steak and lumpy mashed potatos with sawmill gravy. Furthermore I think Lincoln was a tyrant and I like mint julips.
> 
> Please, please can I be a southerner. If Hillary can be a senator from NY then I don't see why I can't be an honorary southern gentlemen. Thanks y'all.



Traitor! Leave your maple syrup at the border and never again say, "Pahk ya cah at the Hahvad yahd."


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## BobVigneault (Feb 22, 2008)

Have you seen Vermont politics in the last 30 years?????

I gladly leave that limp wristed, tofu eating, burkenstock wearing, socialist, unitarian universalist crowd of liberal miscreants behind.

Go to Cracker Barrel restaurant (Based in Tennessee) and they serve real Vermont Maple Syrup, THE ONE OBJECT OF VALUE THAT VERMONT HAS LEFT!


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## Richard King (Feb 22, 2008)

I say Bawb is in. 
Nearly everyone down here is a Joe Bawb, or a Billy Bawb or Jim Bawb anyway.

(not to mention the great Bawb E. Lee)


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## BJClark (Feb 22, 2008)

I would say it depends on where you live in Florida, if one considers themselves to be southerners or not.

And my grandparents who were born and raised in West (by God) Virginia, consider themselves Southerners, my step mother, born and raised in Tennessee, considers herself a Southerner, as does the rest of her family. 

I think for many people, it depends on if they had ancestors who fought in the Civil War, and if their families stressed that heritage, as many in the South do, probably moreso than the North. 

Most of those are more for States Rights and less Federal Government imposing on them.

Something I have noticed is that once kids reach a certain age they go from being called by their name to having Miss or Mr. put in front of it by the younger kids...like my daughters who are in their teens are called Miss Casey, and Miss Jessie, and my son is called by some of them Mr. Nick. 

I don't know if they do that up north or not, but I haven't noticed it among my friends who have moved here from the north, and when kids first start calling them Miss ____ they seem to get offended by it. 

And if the families are really close friends, there is a gradual change from say Miss Tammy to Aunt Tammy, or from Miss Vanessa to Aunt Vanessa, and their kids become cousins..


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## BobVigneault (Feb 22, 2008)

Bobbi, if your middle name is 'Jo' then I think you're definitely IN!


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## Southern Presbyterian (Feb 22, 2008)

BobVigneault said:


> I was born and raised in SOUTHERN Vermont and now I live in SOUTHERN Wisconsin. I love sweet tea, turnip greens, country fried steak and lumpy mashed potatos with sawmill gravy. Furthermore I think Lincoln was a tyrant and I like mint julips.
> 
> Please, please can I be a southerner. If Hillary can be a senator from NY then I don't see why I can't be an honorary southern gentlemen. Thanks y'all.



According to Steve Mitchell, author of [ame="http://www.amazon.com/How-Speak-Southern-Steve-Mitchell/dp/0553275194/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203692837&sr=1-1"]How To Speak Southern[/ame], it is possible for a Yankee to become an honorary Southerner. However, he is careful to point out that under no circumstance is it possible for a Southerner to become a Yankee of any type (assuming that for some unearthly reason any Southerner in their right mind would even want to).


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## BJClark (Feb 22, 2008)

BobVigneault;

If your going to add grits to the menu, you should make them Cheese grits, as that is how many southerners make them.


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## BobVigneault (Feb 22, 2008)

My wife and kids all like grits. My wife was born in Indiana. I just never acquired the taste.

Hey does Maypo count???!!!


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## BJClark (Feb 22, 2008)

BobVigneault;



> Bobbi, if your middle name is 'Jo' then I think you're definitely IN!



I had to laugh at this, because many people never believed me when I told them my name..and yes, that is the name my daddy gave me..


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## JBaldwin (Feb 22, 2008)

I was born and raised in Illinois. I've now officially spent more years of my life in the south than in the north, but I still find myself telling people I'm from the north. They figure it out anyway, I've heard "You're not from 'round here are ya?" so many times. For those of us who grew up in one place, it is difficult to easily deny our roots.


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## panta dokimazete (Feb 22, 2008)

hey, we love all ya'll, regardless of your raisin's - bless your hearts!


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## Herald (Feb 22, 2008)

Richard King said:


> I say Bawb is in.
> Nearly everyone down here is a Joe Bawb, or a Billy Bawb or Jim Bawb anyway.
> 
> (not to mention the great Bawb E. Lee)


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## Herald (Feb 22, 2008)

Southern Presbyterian said:


> BobVigneault said:
> 
> 
> > I was born and raised in SOUTHERN Vermont and now I live in SOUTHERN Wisconsin. I love sweet tea, turnip greens, country fried steak and lumpy mashed potatos with sawmill gravy. Furthermore I think Lincoln was a tyrant and I like mint julips.
> ...



Yes, it may be possible for a Northerner to become southern but the process of brain mortification is slow and painful. It usually requires 400 hours of watching Jeff Foxworthy and writing 5000 times on a chalkboard, "I will not put sugar and milk in my grits."


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## Herald (Feb 22, 2008)

JBaldwin said:


> I was born and raised in Illinois. I've now officially spent more years of my life in the south than in the north, but I still find myself telling people I'm from the north. They figure it out anyway, I've heard "You're not from 'round here are ya?" so many times. For those of us who grew up in one place, it is difficult to easily deny our roots.



Amen, sister! You can take the boy out of the north but not the north out of the boy (or in your case, "the girl").


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## Southern Presbyterian (Feb 22, 2008)

BaptistInCrisis said:


> "I will not put sugar and milk in my grits."



Sacrilege! 

And I might add that the end result of the "yankee mortification" process is sooooo worth it that no amount of pain would be counted as too high a cost.


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## JBaldwin (Feb 22, 2008)

BaptistInCrisis said:


> Southern Presbyterian said:
> 
> 
> > BobVigneault said:
> ...



Sugar in my grits? I can't even stomach grits. (You can add fatback, pigs feet, turnip greens, black eyed peas and collards to that list)


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## BobVigneault (Feb 22, 2008)

Oh turnips greens!!!!

When I go to Cracker Barrel and they ask me what I would for my two sides I always answer... "An order of turnip greens and another order of turnip greens, please... with vinegar."

Now my son has started begging for mine so I have to get him his own side of greens cuz I won't share my greens. Yum.


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## MrMerlin777 (Feb 22, 2008)

BobVigneault said:


> Have you seen Vermont politics in the last 30 years?????
> 
> I gladly leave that limp wristed, tofu eating, burkenstock wearing, socialist, unitarian universalist crowd of liberal miscreants behind.
> 
> Go to Cracker Barrel restaurant (Based in Tennessee) and they serve real Vermont Maple Syrup, THE ONE OBJECT OF VALUE THAT VERMONT HAS LEFT!



Hey! I wear Birkenstocks and I'm as Southern as the hills of Virginia that I came from. 

I also wear Dr Martens as well.


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## Pilgrim (Feb 22, 2008)

panta dokimazete said:


> Ah, yes...this thread reminds me that I was just passing by the home of the last great president, just the other day...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I'm assuming that's a pre-Katrina picture. Beauvoir sustained heavy damage during the hurricane.


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## Pilgrim (Feb 22, 2008)

If he doesn't qualify as a southerner maybe Bob can be a Doughface or a Copperhead, although I see that doughface had negative connotations even in the South.


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## Pilgrim (Feb 22, 2008)

Ivanhoe said:


> Yes and no. I think what we would call the "south" is getting more nebulous in our corporation age. Atlanta, Florida, etc. are no more Southern than Boston.
> 
> But I do consider myself a Southerner by means of local traditions, dialect, heroes, values. But again, this breaks down because others in other parts of the country can identify with some of the above--so I can't come up with a list that is uniquely southern.



I wouldn't quite say Atlanta is no more southern than Boston, but generally it is a sound point that the more urban areas like Atlanta or Dallas are less distinctively southern than the rural areas. This is easily seen with accents. With Florida, the further south you go the further north you get. Much of northern Florida is pretty southern in outlook.


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## Mushroom (Feb 22, 2008)

No Texans reporting in yet? Anybody from north of the Red River is a yankee to a true Texan. And they don't permit assimilation. My poor uncle from Wisconson or some such far away hard to pronounce place like it has lived in TX for 40 years or so is still referred to by my family as the D*** Yankee more than by his name. Everyone has tolerated his presence due to the kids, but the stigma never really has diminished.

But for those yankees willing to attempt conversion, one thing to remember is that what you call lunch is called dinner, and what you call dinner is actually supper. And your aunt is not an awnt, but closer to an ain't. Like Ain't Bea. And ya gotta eat blackeyed peas on New Years Day.


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## Pilgrim's Progeny (Feb 22, 2008)

Pergamum said:


> I am a Missouri hillbilly, where does that fit in?



I am originally a MO hillbilly too. I dare believe that any Missourian worth his salt and who studies history rightly would be Southern.

Though, I was brainwashed to be a Yankee, but upon further investigation it became clear that the Christian thing to do is to be Southern

Or you could turn a blind eye and deaf ear and be a Yankee.

To be a Yank would also betray my SBC founders.


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