usadeepsouth.com
TALK ABOUT THE SOUTH
compiled by Beth Boswell Jacks, USADS Editor
Shall we look at the South through the eyes of our writers and other notables? And shall we common folks also have our say? Let's.
"I doubt if the texture of Southern life is any more grotesque than that of the rest of the nation, but it does seem evident that the Southern writer is particularly adept at recognizing the grotesque; and to recognize the grotesque, you have to have some notion of what is not grotesque and why."-- Flannery O'Connor, writer and Georgian
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"I've been told our history over and over through the years . . . Storytelling was our family's television. We've been lucky enough to have a storyteller in each generation."
-- Alex Haley, Tennessee-born author
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"I am THE [Mississippi] Sweet Potato Queen, Boss of all the Sweet Potato Queens, and as such I have, in my opinion, done very well by my charges: provided excellent leadership and elevated them to an exalted position of power and status, which is, of course, their rightful position in this life . . ."
-- Jill Conner Browne, Mississippi author of ~~The Sweet Potato Queen's Book Of Love~~
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Southerners are known far and wide for their hospitality. A good citizen of the South would never insult a visitor, but we wise ones also know how to say the very worst things in a most civilized way. Here's a story, for example, about former U. S. President Jimmy Carter's wonderful mother, Lillian.
According to author Gail Gilchriest in her book Bubbas and Beaus, Miz Lillian was suffering a fool gladly in her Georgia home when the following exchange took place:
Yankee reporter: "Yes, Mrs. Carter, is it true your son has never told a lie?"
Miz Lillian: "Well, that depends whether you mean a real lie or just a little old white lie."
Yankee reporter: "Oh? What exactly is a white lie?"
Miz Lillian: "Well, Sir, remember when you got here? Remember when I said I was happy to see you?"
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"Traditionally Southern statesmen have been orators. A society emphasizing social rituals and manners requires a kind of reverence for words to express adequately sentiment and feeling. The dregs of this rhetoric remain the stock in trade of the grassroots politicians. The Southerner generally does not shy away--to the extent the Northerner does--from a use of language that is something more than bare statement. The Northerner, with his conditioned respect for practicality and getting-to-the-point is more likely to possess a far greater reading than speaking vocabulary and to associate anything more than simple expression with ostentation."
--William Van O'Connor, U.S. critic, educator
[Ye Editor's note: I declare! Us? Ostentatious? Nevah.]
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From Judge Thomas Givens:
Seems today black and white folks tend to associate mostly with their own race, but it didn't use to be that way. I was raised on a Mississippi Delta farm in the '40s and '50s with blacks. Dad had up to six families on his place; he knew more about their lineage than his own family.
Robert Simmons and his family were with my Grandfather and Dad for over 50 years. His wife, Lula, "Miss Babe," practically raised me. Sylvester Williams was with Dad for 30 years, was his "straw boss," and I thought they would have to put Daddy in the ground with him when he died.
I loved my Grandaddy and stayed with him a lot of the time. Some of my most pleasant memories are about how I got up early in the mornings and went to Ruleville with him to pick up day hands to chop, hoe, or pick cotton. I hung out all day with the workers.
One night, I was at Gangy's--that's what I called my granddaddy--and Callie, Miss Babe's sister, came running up to the house, saying she had "cut" Roosevelt, her husband. Gangy got his old Studebaker out. He and Callie loaded Roosevelt into the back of the car and off we went to Dr. Lusk in Ruleville. Roosevelt didn't make it, and Callie went to Parchman [Penitentiary].
Roosevelt's blood stains were still on the back seat when Gangy got rid of the car.
And that's just the way it was. The good folks, black and white, tried to take care of each other . . .
And we shall have more in short order. Want to contribute a passage or a memory for our pages? We'd be tickled. Send your favorites to USADS editor.