It matters as much as who lives here.

This the view from my Grandmama's front porch. I spent my youth wandering around this entire area with my cousins. One of our past times was walking down that lane. Just walking. Sometimes we talked.
Haven't been back there in years.


This where my brother lives(and my brother). It is behind my grandmama's house. You can walk there along a path surrounded by trees. This picture was taken in winter.


This is his front yard. This picture was taken in spring.


No mas. No more arguing about The South here. Ever. Not worth it.

Thanks for reaching out. That first song made me cry.

Grits

that first picture reminds me of the sandy little path roads in the scrub pine woods of Welfleet where I spent summers as a kid.

I'm glad you liked the song. It makes me cry too and it makes me nostalgic for a place I've never lived.

That region appeals to me for some reason.

I've always wanted to visit the deep south proper. Closest I've gotten is south Texas, which felt as much like Mexico as anything southern. The air and culture in Houston just felt so different than in Washington (state).

Some day I'd like to drive from Louisiana to South Carolina just to see what it's like.

Thanks for sharing.

broken here and there by deciduous trees that provide incredible, colorful beauty and contrast at this time of year. Clear, cold lakes and streams.

Cool summer nights; brisk, sparkling winter days; hoarfrost; a good fire in the wood stove.

and I love looking out over the village on a really cold still winter day and seeing the smoke from the chimneys- and yeah, I know it's pollution.

Of course, here, firewood is the cheapest fuel. You can get a permit to cut marked trees in local forests for $10. My woodstove is the only heat I've got, outside of a couple of little electric space heaters. My favorite wood stove, which I no longer have, came from Vermont, though. It had a catalytic converter that burned more efficiently and released less pollution.

Do you write any of your own?

But to answer your question, what resonates with me are towering snow-covered peaks, blue-green pine forests and exuberantly lush green valleys dotted with beaver ponds and COLD clear streams.

That or being on the bounding main. I am torn on this as on many things.

Edited to add: See post #4.

I used to. Honestly I think poetry is young person's land. there are notable exceptions. I'm not one. I've been exiled.

I'm torn too. It's why I posted that lyric from Winchester about feet in the south/head in the cool blue north.

For me, the commonalities are air and space: bright, brisk and wide open. Fall is my favorite season, summer my least...which makes it hard to explain how I ended up in Mexico. But it won't be forever. My heart's in the highlands, my heart is no' here.

The South

By Emma Lazarus 1849–1887 Emma Lazarus

Night, and beneath star-blazoned summer skies
Behold the Spirit of the musky South,
A creole with still-burning, languid eyes,
Voluptuous limbs and incense-breathing mouth:
Swathed in spun gauze is she,
From fibres of her own anana tree.


Within these sumptuous woods she lies at ease,
By rich night-breezes, dewy cool, caressed:
’Twixt cypresses and slim palmetto trees,
Like to the golden oriole’s hanging nest,
Her airy hammock swings,
And through the dark her mocking-bird yet sings.


How beautiful she is! A tulip-wreath
Twines round her shadowy, free-floating hair:
Young, weary, passionate, and sad as death,
Dark visions haunt for her the vacant air,
While noiselessly she lies
With lithe, lax, folded hands and heavy eyes.


Full well knows she how wide and fair extend
Her groves bright flowered, her tangled everglades,
Majestic streams that indolently wend
Through lush savanna or dense forest shades,
Where the brown buzzard flies
To broad bayous ’neath hazy-golden skies.


Hers is the savage splendor of the swamp,
With pomp of scarlet and of purple bloom,
Where blow warm, furtive breezes faint and damp,
Strange insects whir, and stalking bitterns boom—
Where from stale waters dead
Oft looms the great jawed alligator’s head.


Her wealth, her beauty, and the blight on these,—
Of all she is aware: luxuriant woods,
Fresh, living, sunlit, in her dream she sees;
And ever midst those verdant solitudes
The soldier’s wooden cross,
O’ergrown by creeping tendrils and rank moss.


Was hers a dream of empire? was it sin?
And is it well that all was borne in vain?
She knows no more than one who slow doth win,
After fierce fever, conscious life again,
Too tired, too weak, too sad,
By the new light to be or stirred or glad.


From rich sea-islands fringing her green shore,
From broad plantations where swart freemen bend
Bronzed backs in willing labor, from her store
Of golden fruit, from stream, from town, ascend
Life-currents of pure health:
Her aims shall be subserved with boundless wealth.


Yet now how listless and how still she lies,
Like some half-savage, dusky Indian queen,
Rocked in her hammock ’neath her native skies,
With the pathetic, passive, broken mien
Of one who, sorely proved,
Great-souled, hath suffered much and much hath loved!


But look! along the wide-branched, dewy glade
Glimmers the dawn: the light palmetto trees
And cypresses reissue from the shade,
And she hath wakened. Through clear air she sees
The pledge, the brightening ray,
And leaps from dreams to hail the coming day.

You're very kind. Thank you.

Here's a memory:

His name was Ezra but we called him Railroad because he was a retired railroad worker. He likely never finished high school and served in the second world war as an MP. He had driven so many railroad spikes in his life that you could draw a pencil line on a log and he could split that line first time every time.

I had been reading The Minds I by Hofstadter and Dennett, most of which was bouncing off my forehead, when railroad dropped by to visit and the topic of a recent suicide by one of our neighbors came up. Since Harry had been a jovial and energetic figure in the community in spite of humped shoulder damaged by a horse kick in his youth that left him slightly impaired the taking of his own life came as a bit of a shock.

So with the shreds of What Is It Like to Be a Bat still hanging in my head Railroad looked down and said, "Well, you just don't know what's in a man's mind." Railroad understood what I had been reading better than I did.

Harry, who had never married, had stipulated in his will that anything his relatives didn't want from his estate was to be burned. They made arrangements for the cheapest most expedient funeral service possible and divided up the spoils. Among the things to be burned were Harry's books. They had no use for those. I was able to rescue a few of them. I still have an original edition of Macaulay's History of England.

Last edited Sat Oct 19, 2013, 01:20 PM - Edit history (1)

When we lived in Greenwich & Ridgefield CT we used to do our Fall Foliage tour to Vermont. Would ride through the little towns and stop at the Covered Bridges and take lots of pictures of them and the gorgeous display of red, yellow, golden leaves contrasting with the bright blue sky (free of pollution) with puffs of pure white clouds drifting over the hills. We'd always find a Church Supper with fantastic homemade everything and a Craft Fair on the side. Always got our Halloween Pumpkin in Vermont to bring back home to CT...just for the memories.

But, I grew up in the SC Lowcountry outside of Charleston on an island. We had our own accent..."Gullah." It was a blending of English with the Slave dialect. I had relatives in Savannah so I spent time there in the Summer. No matter where I would ever live ...the lowcountry is where my heart will always be. I love the traditional architecture of both cities and wildlife and earthiness. The palmetto trees, the huge ancient live oaks and the oleanders, camelias, azaleas and gardenias. I love the old brick...the sense of history. The earthiness--the scents of the plough mud and the creeks and the ocean. The mysteriousness of the whole area. It's just a special place.

We also learned a lot about SC voodoo. My parents and relatives didn't believe in it, but they never made fun of it.
I still think about painting a blue color around my windows and doors.

FUN LINK
The Boo Hags of Gullah Culture

https://scaresandhauntsofcharleston.wordpress.com/2012/04/22/the-boo-hags-of-gullah-culture/

AND:


Folklore: To ward off evil spirits or “haints,” as it’s referred to by the Gullah people, the Gullah people would paint the ceilings of their porches a type of sky blue. This blue eventually became known as “Haint Blue” or “Gullah Blue” and was used to fool the evil spirits into thinking that the ceiling or was the sky. It was believed that the spirit would then fly up into the ceiling thinking it was the sky, and continue upwards; thus, not entering the home.

Today, this blue ceiling tradition is still used on porches all around the Lowcountry and is seen on everything from homes to restaurants.

Language: The language spoken by the Gullah people is an English-based creole language. It combines the English language with languages from Africa that have been altered. And a fairly large number of words and phrases in the Gullah language are still used in Sierra Leone today.

http://www.ahoycharleston.com/exploring-the-gullah-culture-of-the-lowcountry/

The best ways to explore Gullah culture in the Lowcountry:

Take a tour with Gullah Tours in Charleston
Eat at the famed Mount Pleasant cafe, Gullah Cuisine
Visit Gullah Gourmet in Charleston for some Gullah spices, boils, rubs, and delectable Gullah dishes.
Visit the Market in downtown Charleston and purchase a sweetgrass basket
Stop by Gallery Chuma in downtown Charleston to view or purchase some Gullah paintings
Visit the Avery Research Center for African American History & Culture at the College of Charleston

It captures Savannah and the atmosphere of LowCountry very well. It was a huge bestseller in the early 90's and there was a movie made of it.

--------------

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51dy2JFCx2L._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.
It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman's Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the "soul of pampered self-absorption"; the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story is a sublime and seductive reading experience. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, this enormously engaging portrait of a most beguiling Southern city is certain to become a modern classic.


-----------------
FROM WIKIPEDIA:

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is atmospheric and Southern Gothic in tone, depicting a wide range of eccentric personalities in and around the city of Savannah, Georgia.

The action that serves as a catalyst in the book is the killing of Danny Hansford, a local male prostitute (characterized as "a good time not yet had by all&quot by respected antiques dealer Jim Williams. This results in four murder trials, with the final one ending in acquittal after the judge finally agreed to move the case away from the Savannah jury pool. The book characterizes the killing as the result of a lovers' quarrel, not a pre-meditated murder. The death occurred in Williams' home, which was originally built by an ancestor of songwriter and Savannah native Johnny Mercer.

The book also highlights many other notable Savannah residents, most notably The Lady Chablis, a non-operative transgendered woman and local drag queen and entertainer. Chablis provides both a Greek chorus of sorts as well as a light-hearted contrast to the more serious action.

The book's plot is based on real-life events that occurred in the 1980s and is classified as non-fiction. Because it reads like a novel (and rearranges the sequence of true events in time), it is sometimes referred to as a "non-fiction novel" or "faction", a sub-genre popularized by Truman Capote and Norman Mailer. (Booksellers generally feature the title in the "true crime" subsection.) It is among the most popular non-fiction releases of all time.

The title alludes to the hoodoo notion of "midnight", the period between the time for good magic and the time for evil magic, and "the garden of good and evil," which refers principally to Bonaventure Cemetery.

The famous Bird Girl statue, originally designed both as art and as a birdseed holder, was originally located at Bonaventure. A Savannah photographer, Jack Leigh, was commissioned to take a photograph for the cover of the book, and in so doing he created his now famous photograph of the statue. The Bird Girl was relocated in 1997 for display in the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah.

Savannah is one of my favorite Southern cities. I love Charleston too.

I had an aunt who ran a boarding house in Savannah in the 1940's and 1950's. She had some tales to tell. Aunt Minnie was very petite, but she didn't put up with any crap. I wish she had written a book.

Why some of us are so drenched in History. I don't think many understand that..."Tied Together with our Past."

Thanks for replying!

bluebonnets on the roadsides in spring, powerful crashing thunderstorms, Big Tex's booming voice at the State Fair in the fall, "Howdy folks...".

It's my home and I just love it.

I might hate the hate and the horrible rightwing stuff,
but I've always gotten along with people here and I
love them.

The white sands of the South are exquisite as are the great oak trees.

The South was a great place to study English. Hard to find people to talk politics or history with. But our most readable, brilliant authors were from the South.

I have to ask, however, whether those writers emerged in the South because the social order of the South is so stifling, so rigid that writing was for those authors a reaching out for a freer one.

My theory is that the authors of the South, depicting the society around them with humor (Twain/Clemens), with sad bitterness (Tennessee Williams) or by reflecting the hidden confusion (Faulkner) were reaching out to try to contact the freed humanness beyond the South.

I'm sure the rigidity of the social order of the South plays into that why- as did the rigid social order of New York society did with Edith Wharton- but it's so much more. The sun washed hues of Kate Chopin stick with me as infused with a particularly southern sensibility. I love the jarring notes that run through Walker Percy. It's language and history and distinct regional notes. The south is sort of an exotic bouquet with lots of flora. There's a lot of material to choose from; from the Scot-Irish history and tradition in the Southern Appatlations to the Creole of New Orleans. Hell, just the regional accents are amazing.

(both Alabama bred and born)
write so lyrically I read their stories over and over again, in little sips, like fine wine.

There is great variety in accents in my lil town alone, I have noticed.
Differences between generations alone are noticeable. I am kinda sad that the "old" accents are dying out.

One of the first things I noticed in my travels around the South is the fact that people down here are great talkers.
No matter how young or how old, people love to stop and "chat",
thus no great surprise that there are so many southern writers of varying degrees.

and the music were inspired by the meanness and cruelty of their society. A sensitive person in such a society feels very lonely and expresses that loneliness in art. It isn't surprising therefore that a society that is unjust and that excludes produces very sensitive artists. Art is how they express their loneliness and their frustration.

A personal revolt. A lot of "art" that is not born of inner misery is pretty miserable.

I know some comedians. I know a couple of them extremely well. The really good ones are miserable. Not miserably poor. Just miserable because of their frustrating wealth of insight and understanding.

aren't miserable at all. I don't mean that they haven't known suffering but they aren't miserable and that's not where there art comes from.

It was ravaged by General Sherman...Altanta burnt to the Ground on his grand swatch cut.

Cattle, chickens were taken by the Union Troops and with no men around it the women had to plant and try to get along as best they could. The money all went into Confederate Currency and it was worthless after the war. No money little food...terrible poverty and a broken system. The Great Depression took its toll on what little recovery had managed to come after the Northern (Carpet Baggers) came in and put in some industry, mining for phosphate, timber cutting and such. But, things were still pretty much truck farms and scrabbling. The larger cities like Atlanta rebuilt with northern money and investment and the port cities of Charleston, Savannah and along the Gulf Coast like New Orleans and others managed to survive in a better fashion.

But, most don't realize that outside the cities most of the South didn't have electricity until the Rural Electric Cooperatives under the New Deal were established. And outhouses oil lamps and Kerosene stoves for heat in the Winter was the norm even through the late 1940's after WWII. The South didn't get over the Civil war because of the poverty. And Lincoln's plan for Reconstruction would have been better, but he was assassinated. And, Johnson couldn't control what happened afterwards or perhaps wasn't as charitable as Lincoln.

The writers you speak of were legacies of the poverty of the memories of the war and devastation..through parents and grandparents and the Great Depression. There was great bitterness particularly about the Carpet Baggers and Industrialists who bought up the land and made the profits...although they provided at least some jobs to the people.

But, yes...there was an awakening amongst those writers about what was around them and how they perhaps wanted to get out of it. And, many of them did. But, the culture they grew up with was one of living in an area that was Post War--had been devasted and wasn't recovering. When the "Picture Shows" as the (Movies were called back then) arrived they began to see how different they were from what they were seeing coming out of Hollywood. WWII allowed many to get out and get jobs in other parts of US and become successful. But, those left behind had either the Military to go into for further education or to work on the Military bases which the War had brought to the South for employment. The Shipyards and Nuclear Sub building was a boost to Savannah and Charleston...and the ports, as I said in the other coastal areas.

This is simplistic...but a quick synopsis. The writers of that time had a great identification with the people around them and an inner turmoil from that heritage of "The War of Northern Aggression" as it was known...(yeah...I know) and I think that there's a sad and tormented quality that comes through in some of the best of the writers like Faulkner. Then there's terrible turmoil of Thomas Wolfe's writing. On the other hand the much softer style of Truman Capote.

The whites in the South never forgave the North for ending slavery.

I lived there in those years. I am white, but I will tell you, it was all about racism. Much of it still is. There are enlightened areas I understand. There are enlightened individuals such as the authors mentioned in my previous post.

But essentially, the Southern whites maintained when I was there, as much as possible, the attitudes that kept slavery going. That was true even in churches. The Jewish children in my classes were not part of the rigid meanness and racism. That's probably because they weren't accepted easily either.

Anyway, the South is a beautiful country, but when I lived there, the racism and snobbism and classism pretty much dominated life.

The recent shut-down by conservatives (not all of them Southerners) and the way they treat our President reminded me of those horrible days.

As I wrote, if you read the book, The Help, those white women were, I suspect, the women in my high school class. There were a couple of really loving girls in that class, but most of them were just like the women in The Help. As I said, I am not Jewish, but the Jewish children who were not part of the society, not accepted in the exclusive clubs, etc. were normal. The Southern women -- cattier than anywhere else I have ever been. And I have been a lot of places.

Sorry. I'm just calling it like I saw it.

And when I watched the shut-down, it all came back. It's ugly. I feel sorry for the intellectuals and the liberals and the truly religious people in the South. It's an ugly culture.

My brother and I both grew up in Texas, same town, same parents. He, was fascinated with the civil war since high school, eventually moved to a southern city, and has adapted the sympathy for the "defeated southern white", loves the Confederate flag, and absorbed the prejudice symptomatic of the south.

I on the other hand, adopted my parents' liberal attitudes of inclusion and progressiveness. Why diametrically opposite adult attitudes from the same cultural and genetic background?

Here's Charleston:



Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim Synagogue,(founded 1740s) Charleston, South Carolina, 1840 building

Jewish Merchants were there and increased during and after the Civil War. Indeed Ben Bernanke's Father and Grandfather owned a Drug Store in Dillon, South Carolina.

The Port Cities Welcomed Immigrants...as did New York City (a Port City) so there truly was a sense of Diversification in those Cities.

If everyone can take a few minutes to watch ......

For Cali you are a good person and have a good heart....

"Seven Bridges Road"

There are stars
In the Southern sky
Southward as you go
There is moonlight
And moss in the trees
Down the Seven Bridges Road

Now I have loved you like a baby
Like some lonesome child
And I have loved you in a tame way
And I have loved you wild

Sometimes there's a part of me
Has to turn from here and go
Running like a child from these warm stars
Down the Seven Bridges Road

There are stars in the Southern sky
And if ever you decide
You should go
There is a taste of thyme sweetened honey
Down the Seven Bridges Road


For the rest of you hypocrites, not every one in the south are haters and racists, this is what I got out of my youth in the military...



"Southern Comfort Zone"

When your wheelhouse is the land of cotton,
The first time you leave it can be strange, it can be shocking

Not everybody drives a truck, not everybody drinks sweet tea
Not everybody owns a gun, wears a ball cap boots and jeans
Not everybody goes to church or watches every NASCAR race
Not everybody knows the words to "Ring Of Fire" or "Amazing Grace"

[Chorus:]
Oh, Dixie Land,
I hope you understand
When I miss my Tennessee Home
And I've been away way too long
I can't see this world unless I go
Outside my Southern Comfort Zone

I have walked the streets of Rome, I have been to foreign lands
I know what it's like to talk and have nobody understand
I have seen the Eiffel Tower lit up on a Paris night
I have kissed a West Coast girl underneath the Northern Lights
I know what it's like to be the only one like me,
To take a good hard look around and be a minority

And I Miss my Tennessee home
I can see the ways that I grown
I can't see this world unless I go
Outside my Southern Comfort Zone

I miss your biscuits and your gravy
Fireflies dancing in the night
You have fed me, You have saved me
Billy Graham and Martha White

I have since become a drifter
And I just can't wait to pack
Cause I know the route I leave on
It will always bring me back

[Solo]

[Chorus:]
I wish I was in Dixie Again
I miss my Tennessee Home
I've been away way too long
I can't see this world unless I go
Outside My Southern Comfort Zone

Look away, look away

I wish I was in Dixie, away, look away

Some folks around here just don't get it, we are all on the same side!

You are older than dirt around here, so here is to good soil that grows good things like me.

I'm not as great of expressing myself in writing but here are a few samples of why I love my home state of Tennessee.











And, I typed uo this post as I'm sitting on our back deck with the neighbors, couple of friends, and the dogs watching two SEC teams play college football from the second largest stadium in the country. lol!

btw, Vermont is on my and hubby's bucket list. We will visit one day within the next few years. We just haven't decided if we are driving so we can see more country (which means longer time off work) or fly and visit just Vermont.

and New England is small. You could visit Vermont and the coast of Maine and Cape Cod. Just rent a car and they're all within a few hours!

thanks so much for posting.

See, I knew there was a reason we wanted to visit there!

That may be what we do. Thanks!

She's from Mingo County, West Virginia. We usually spent two weeks a year down there when I was a kid, one in the summer & one at Christmas. I haven't been back for almost thirty years, but at Christmastime I still feel like I should be "down home" in the hills. Thanks for sharing those.

So much of this country is beautiful.

It looks like home to me. Thank you.

Glad you enjoyed them.

This is a beautiful post, in many ways.

I bounced around all over the place when I was young ... Ohio, Colorado, Texas, California ... but once I came to Alaska in 1972 to visit my parents (they moved here in 1969), I knew it was where I had to be, so I moved here permanently in 1975. Now I can't think of living anywhere else.

What I love about Alaska is even though you can't get to huge portions of the state, and there's a lot of it I'll probably never see, it's comforting to me to know that there's all that wilderness out there, untouched, unchanged and free.

your URL in the sig line. Your photos have always been amazing!

Peace to you, cali.

with kind words.

What or the where, if I may be so bold, resonates with you?

I did not think I would ever be able to move here to Alabama when I left last time.
Happily, it turned out that Mr. Dixie was willing to be exported from the Coast, and we did move back to this lil town.
I drove out first, to buy the house of my dreams, ( where I sit happlly typing this)
and when I crossed the Mississippi/Alabama line, on the back roads I knew so well,
I fired up the dvd deck and played a song I had been saving for just that moment.

It was raining outside, I was leaking tears of joy in the car, and singing along to
John Denver 's Country Roads, turned up full blast.
For 80 miles, over and over, till I reached the city limits of "home".

the former musical theme park Opryland's opening.

I don't know if you ever went to it but they had a wide variety of music in different sectors of the park, country, blue grass, a New Orleans Jazz area, rock and roll and just contemporary.

The entry area had a band playing John Denver's "Country Roads" and they did a most excellent rendition, it was a mystical sort of moment even in a theme park, I felt tingles on the back of my neck.

That was the first time that I ever heard the song.

Warm summer evening after a hot day, the smell of oak trees and dry grass.

It's somewhere I'd never live, though, even if the hardcore conservatives left.

come to an otherwise lovely thread and take a dump? Haters apparently absolutely have to prove it on a regular basis.

There is nothing redeeming about the South. The weather sucks. The area sucks. Many of the people suck. The politics suck.

If I didn't have to travel to the South for the rest of my life, I'd be happy, no, ecstatic.

than about the south.

I have several places, as I have lived in many a different environment.

A rainy day in september walking the cobblestone streets of city center and the towering presence of Kings college chapel in Cambridge, UK

A little town by the name of Apache junction, Az. And the ever changing colors of the Superstition mountains.

And the smell of fall leaves and wood smoke here in my cozy Northwest Arkansas home.

All places have good and bad, but it is up to the individual to find the beauty and kindness wherever they live. And to bring the love and kindness with them.

There is a smell when we go down home (which is Wadmalaw Island, just south of Charleston) that always gets me. The funny thing is that it is not a particularly pleasant smell! My husband and kids always complain that it stinks. But when the tide is out and you can smell the mud and the marsh, it just says 'home' to me.

That and the sound of the 'hot' bugs. In the summertime you can hear the constant high pitched buzz of the cicadas (or whatever it is) in the trees. My mother always called them the 'hot bugs' because the hotter it gets, the louder they get. That sound is home, too. Oh, and tree frogs!

The sight of big oaks, sandy roads and, yeah, Spanish moss. All that stuff feels like home to me.

Sunrise with crescent moon, looking toward Kennesaw Mtn, Marietta, GA.



Horse paddock in a creek's flood plain, Paulding County, GA




Midnight on Turtle Pond, Rockdale County, GA



Riding over the trestle on the Silver Comet Trail, Paulding County, GA.

I am getting such a sense of people from this thread and how they feel about place.

I love it when I'm in nature, whether it be a park or wilderness, but Town Creek Indian Mound "calls" to me. I love that place whether the Powwow is going on at the time or not.

Back when I was taking college classes in the evening, I would spend the weekdays going up to Town Creek Indian Mound. On a weekday, you pretty much get the place to yourself. If you go in winter, especially. So that was when I could go and just feel the serenity and solitude. I watched the animals on the trails go on about their business as I just sat there. I know when people talk about "one" with Nature, a lot of people think "nutcase" or "flake" but I felt it when I could go there and just be alone (other than the staff who knew me and let me go in and enjoy the place all by myself.

Second to Town Creek Indian Mound has always been Morrow Mountain. It is part of the Uwharrie Mountains. It is truly beautiful up that way no matter what time of year it is.

Lately, though, I have learned that my own little tiny plot of land and my little hovel is the most sacred of all to me. I feel super protective of this place and love it. I'm happiest in my little hovel in the jungle or in the jungle when it is cooler weather. I can't handle the heat, so the minute we start having cool days, I'm outside wandering around in the jungle with all the rabbits, squirrels, birds, spiders, ants, wasps and bees and snakes*, and that's that.

*I saw several 5 to 6 foot long black rat snakes this summer through the window. I was spellbound. Whatever new species (new to me for this yard, I mean) I see always thrills me.

I know snakes are not exactly everyone's favorite thing to see in their yard, but I was controlled as a kid and told not to play in the backyard at my grandmother's house (which is a couple hundred yards down the road from where I live now) because of snakes in the yard. I have seen numerous snakes since we moved here and none has harmed me yet. I'm always thrilled to find a new species, any species of critter to look up online and learn more about and enjoy.

The only real worry I have back in the jungle is that there was a root cellar at this spot when the old house that was here before burned down. I want to find it, to try to rebuild it, but I don't want to find it by a falling in while I wonder around out there.

I always loved Thoreau because I could read what he had to write about solitude and wilderness where he was and translate it to my little place in the world. Because I could do that, I truly enjoyed his writing. The way he saw things and wrote about things is pretty much how my thought processes go most days when I get to enjoy the jungle out back. I didn't care that he was from the north. I felt the same as he did on so many topics, life, etc.

of Uwharrie. It served as a sanctuary during my time at Ft. Bragg. Spent many happy weekends camping and hiking. Of course, some time was spent there on Robin Sage exercises, but even then I enjoyed being outdoors in a beautiful area.

Thank you all so much for the wonderful stories and pictures.

The entire thread was a great read!

are my earth magnet. I get too far away from them and I feel lost, no compass. When I can sight one of those majestic foothills in the distant on my return trip I feel welcomed home. The bones of those mountains are my bones.

Thunderstorms you hear hear befor you see slowly coming over the hills, I think of that and honest season changes from hot, hot summers to waking up to a big snow on the ground in the winter.

Little Richard Penniman


The Allman Brothers Band


Otis Redding ("pining" for his home, you might say)



-Laelth

nothing, but nothing like Otis singing "sittin' on the dock of the bay"

I was born in the Midwest and lived there for the first 35 years of my life. I moved to the South at 35 and lived there almost ten years and while there explored different states knowing that someday I may have to move again, which I did - back to the Midwest but another state. I feel tremendously grateful for the opportunity to have lived in the South and experienced it and the people who were born and raised there. I learned so much about myself and "place" by living in two very different areas. As a much younger person I had never travelled anywhere outside my home state, so I went to the South with a lot of preconceived notions about the people etc. I've been gone from the South for 20 years now and as they say, hindsight is 20/20.

What I realize now is that if you go with a preconceived notion of Southerners, that's what you'll see the most of. If you go with an open mind, you'll realize that at the core we all feel a sense of "place" and are fiercely protective of it. As a younger person I would wax eloquently about all the things the North had that the South didn't. I guess I was missing my roots and family and once again, I was young. With age and experience comes a tremendous amount of wisdom (with some people), and now I am able to admit to myself that I was often for looking for the things that I didn't like instead of focusing on some of the qualities that I did like.

What it comes down to is that there are beautiful places and beautiful, kind people everywhere you go. Some of the beautiful, breathtaking pictures posted on this thread that were taken in the South could just as well have been taken in Northern Michigan or other states as some posters have remarked.

Now, I'll add one last thing so that I don't sound like too much of a Pollyanna. I think the hardest thing I had to deal with were the people. If I came to the South with preconceived notions about Southerners, so, too they had preconceived notions about an "uppity Yankee woman" (yes, I actually heard that I was called that because I had a college degree in the early 80's), and it took a very, very long time to get them to accept that I was a decent person.

can work both ways.

Thanks...that was a thoughtful post and much appreciated with an interesting view.

Recommend!

I had a neighbor who I became friends with while in the South and she was from Boston originally, but her husband was in sales and she had lived in about seven states by then. She told me that one very important lesson she had learned from living in seven different states was to never put down the state you are living in to a "native" of that state. She said, "The place where a person was born and raised is very important to them no matter what state it is." She was 11 years older than me and I will always remember her telling me that.

I also remember how she told me that when she moved to the South the neighbors made fun of her "accent". LOL Here she was trying to get used to the Southern drawl and they were making fun of her Boston accent.

Jesse also wrote "Biloxi", which makes me tear up for home every time. And no matter how long I'm in the NW, which I like a lot, it doesn't tickle that home spot.

Thanks for the sweet, understanding thread.

a place I've never seen??

for you, nolabear, my dear:

(tickling the home spot- what a great way to put it.)

and Okanogan rivers meet, then east across the mountains and highlands of NE Washington across the Kettle and the Columbia through the panhandle of Idaho and into the Montana Rockies, will always be home for me.

I've been in all of the lower 48, many of them several times, but where I grew up in the Northwest is the most magical of all, IMO.

Honorable mention goes to the Wind River Range, the Absaroka Range, and the Tetons of Wyoming, the hills of West Virginia, the Ozarks, the Smokies, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in Autumn, and the wild parts of the Oregon Coast. Yellowstone National Park is by far the most amazing and unique place that I have ever been. I've backpacked there four times, and once you get away from the crowds at the tourist attractions, you are in a bizarre and beautiful other world, full of wildlife and cool shit you never see anywhere else.

But now I am, I hope, all done with living in cold northern places, and would be happy to never see snow again, so I live in the Southwest, which has its own charms. I love tropical beaches, so in a few years I will move to the tropical beach/jungle paradise where I have spent many winters, and plan to live down there, a happy, carefree, barefoot old hippie girl, for the rest of my daze.

Location. I hear Ya... I gotta be near a beach...! And no need to give away YOUR particular PARADISE...but, just some kind of range in SW of where a good place would be.

I'm Southeast...never thought of SW for Beach. I'm thinking near Mexico or Baja Peninsular? Much Hurricanes Lately...but, then...I live on East Coast.

I worry about our Beaches where I, also have found happiness.

There are no nice beaches left in SoCal, they're all crowded and dirty nowadays. If you want nice beaches and warm weather on the Pacific, you have to start in Mexico.

On the Caribbean side of Mexico, Cancun is only about 550 miles from Miami as the gull flies. Cancun sucks, unless you're into stock tourist traps. But there are a few hideaways down that way. Around Tulum used to be a good place to hang but the popularity of Cancun and Playa del Carmen has ruined the vibe.

There are many nice beaches on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, south of Mazatlan. Baja is total gringolandia these days, and has some great beaches down around La Paz on the Sea of Cortez, but there's not a whole lot of vegetation on the Baja except for in a few scattered Oases. Cabo San Lucas, is a drunken gringo tourist wasteland, IMO. The water on the Pacific Coast of Baja is extraordinarily cold until you get south of Guerrero Negro on the border of Baja Calfornia Norte and Baja California Sur. There's some seriously remote beaches down there, but it's generally not a place to hang unless you are with a group of surfers.

If you can buy or check out from the Library a Lonely Planet Guide to Mexico, you may be able to narrow down your search. If you are into exploring some. I'm into rustic backpacker hideaways with few tourists, and that's what my beach is, and you couldn't pry the name of it from me under waterboeading.

It really, really helps if you speak Spanish down there, but it's not totally critical.

"A Lonely Planet Guide to Mexico"

I need more people around than quiet isolation...but, I also need abundant wildlife/lush vegetation and that in some untouched preserve to explore...and, suspect what you've chosen for your particular needs is lovely.

's

inspiring thread (bar one response) in recent memory. These are they types of discussions that can help get us past our differences and soothe daily rankles. Why more don't offer their own stories so we can make some sense of where we all come from? Where we come from and why we resonate with a place can lead to a greater understanding of one another.

These are the kinds of threads that make a site a great site. Why aren't there more?

Thank you Cali.

I have really loved getting to know my fellow DUers better through this thread.

It reminds me that we all have so more in common than that which separates us- though that which separates us can seem vast at times.

2 miles away; the strains of a marching band flare across Bivens' Arm Lake. Between, the Ford agency's head mechanic, a couple of artists, an Englis prof and the portrait of his beautiful wife, long ago committed; dirt roads sprinkled wuth PhDs, and the smokey haze from the Cracker's fire as he brewed stump rum in the dense wood. I run down stairs to find the old Emerson, in search of Gene Vincent & Wanda Jackson.

The two-lane highway that cuts through mile-a-minute growth, past the abandoned shacks, past the mouldering graveyard, past the sunny roll of pasture, and finally the curve: As quick as a drug, my eyes relax, my breath slows, I cuddle in my own mind as the wall of gray moss, blown by the breezes of Payne's Prarie, reminds me all is as it was. I slow and glide past the Preserve gate where once my brothers and my Dad entered and walked through the wood to prairie's edge and waited for snipe to flash over our shoulders and silhouette in the dusk. Our barking shotguns chasing air-borne cars, laughing as we missed.

The warm winter walk through forest outside of Gainesville, where all the leaves are yellow, a 3D spectacle, a still shot of silent paint exploding, where my brother and I are the only things moving.

Crossing Mantanzas Inlet over a mile-long rotten wooden bridge, a 2-block jag over A1A, a hundred yards over a dune, the salt drawing the family in, no one speaking, the car dips down and the glare of sun & white, the cranking wings of gulls and the soft crash of the gray blue Atlantic. The car stops, the doors open, we brothers forget the sandwiches, the towels, the lotion and straw hats. We are in full flight toward that which begat us.

Than you Cali for bringing it all out.

It strikes me that there are no urban paeans to place in this thread.