All right Northerners; say something good about the South: I'll start:

Without the South, where would we send all the bad drivers during the winter when special driving skills are required?

i have traveled this entire country, and aside from certain areas of the west coast, and of course the midwest, my stomping grounds (chicagoland excluded), i've never met friendlier folks than when i've been down south...hitchhiking down there is easy as hell too

p.s. i am only ribbing you illinoisians :P

The south makes me feel better about where I'm living

and no boy howdy from me if you ever come to visit...

:popcorn:

very helpful statement :eyes:

where would we go to play golf in February?

not to mention the hotels, which are already nearly full up in season these days.

What we need is for just the right number of golfers to take the hint, since we did overbuild during the Japanese visitor boom in the '80s.

It's the standard Brooklyn Jew meets descendant of NC tobacco farmers sort of tale. My feelings about the South are similar to my feelings about the North: Great, except for the assholes.

Ok, it's Florida, but I have to drive through the south to get here.

Uhmmm ahhhh

Deep sexy southern voices are verra verra nice.

:shrug:

;)

I've got a purty deep southern voice, and it might be verra verra nice (although I don't think I've said verra)

more like verrey verrey nice :shrug:

The humidity is FANTASTIC for your skiN. Truefact.

The humidity is great for your sinuses too. Another truefact.

Terrible for you, but tasty.

I'll be visiting in a few weeks.

I'm not an expert on Southern food, but I believe that sweet tea and pecan pie are pretty ubiquitous in the South.

:thumbsup:

:9

..

Maybe I am glad you are far away.

When a waitress comes to your table and asks if "All y'all are ready?" it just tickles me to no end. :D

And Jimmy Carter is one of my favorite human beings in the whole world.

Ain't we literate :P

Okay, his latest books are cookie cutter versions of his first few books, but he has sold an awful lot of books and he is so damn good looking and if you met him, you would know he is charming and those eyes, that drawl *sigh*

Shelby Foote & William Percy & Tennessee Williams

Of course, the North gave us Nathanial Hawthorne & The Scarlet Letter!

I should know, I teach high school English.

I keed, I keed. But really, I would only recommend Faulkner novels to a pretty small percentage of kids. Sound and the Fury is a pretty wicked opening 70 pages for most people.

I wore my Bukowski T-shirt to school today for the first time (see below). I figured knowledge of Bukowski is probably about 1% of the general population. I teach in a school of about 500. So far two students have said "Awesome shirt!" and it isn't lunch time yet. I think my percentage might be right.

and I haven't taken an English class in 31 years!

:)
The way they talk especially. Nothing more gorgeous than a Southern lilt to their words.

'nuff said.

moon pies

So does SouthlandShari, even if she does vanish too often! :)

I'll have you know I have family in Lexington, NC, the BIRTHPLACE of the BEST BBQ in the world... and we don't use no stinking corn flakes in it either. :P So there... :evilgrin:

(Okay, I just had to say that. :hi: )

:loveya:

And being called "baybay". Which happened to us in NoLa, come to think of it. Waitress: "Whachoo wawnt, baybay?" Can't beat that.

I will NOT call it a Southern "accent".

All non-Southerners are the ones with the "accents".

I love hearing a Southerner talk!

Great food. Much more into historic preservation than my native state of Michigan (which I love but we are too quick to knock down old buildings).

I don't think I could endure the heat and humidity that long, though. I like four seasons.

from blues and jazz, to reknowned American authors, to superlative cuisines.

North, South, East and West, and even the heartland; every region of the U.S. has it's good and bad aspects. I've never been able to comprehend the relative glee of Southern-bashing. It's no more accurate to accuse a generalised South of being biggotted, mouth-breathing, Nascar-loving, rednecks than it would be to accuse a generalised North of being mobsters, gangsters, street-thugs, Goths and emo-loving teenyboppers.

That those elements exist within our societies is fact. That they should define them seems absurd.

The cost of living is a huge plus. We have one of those huge Southern houses with oak trees and a wrap-around porch. And yes, a porch swing. You couldn't buy the smallest efficiency apartment up north for what we paid.

The lack of wealthy people is actually a plus. Sure, we have millionaires, but not enough to ruin things. I belong to the local yacht club. The dues are cheaper than cable TV. For $30 per month I can spend all the time I want on the bay.

The food here is to die for. I'm from South Louisiana. Food is life here. But to be honest, much of Southern food from other states sucks, in my opinion (white gravy is a concept I just can't understand).

The music, the culture, I could name many great things about the place, but a HUGE advantage is that we don't have snow. That's not the case all over the South, but it's true here. I don't care how nice it is up north. The snow is a deal breaker for me.

Having said that, I'll also say that I love visiting the North. I couldn't live there, but it's fun to visit. Boston is my favorite city. Maine is wonderful. Hey, it's all good.

where the heck do you live in the south? You still in South Louisiana? I'm a transplant from California, my husband's from South Carolina -- we keep searching for a great place to settle and haven't found it yet, but know it's not north!

It's a small town, but not tiny. There's not a lot of things to do if you're used to city life, but just down the road is Lafayette, which is really nice. The best of both worlds is to live here, and drive to Lafayette for restaurants and events. Cost of living is a lot higher there.

We're near the coast, but not on the coast. It's a half-hour drive to the yacht club I mentioned.

As an out-of-stater, you'll get a kick out of the Cajun culture.

And I genuinely mean it - I love that ride, even though it's going on 29 years old this season.

And the Viper. :bounce:

It was a very cloudy night, and the clouds were *VERY* low to the ground. Since the GA Cyclone has bright lights that shine up through the structure, the shadow of the coaster was projected onto the clouds, including your outstretched arms - you could see yourself waving.

I agree on Viper as well - I love the Schwarzkopf shuttle loops. This ride is no longer at SFGA, but has been moved to Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom.

I really liked. It had scream in the title I think! I loved it! All of them are great. The ninja is okay, but I rode it 3 times anyway. I would've ridden the Batman more but the line was 2 hours.

http://www.rcdb.com/pd7.htm

The Rollercoaster Database (RCDB) is a great source of past, present, and future rollercoasters all around the world.

I'm from New England but I lived in Mobile Alabama for a year back in the 80's and it was wonderful - beautiful houses and trees, friendly people, good food.

My son lives in western Virginia and it's just beautiful there. And once again, the people are really nice and friendly.

Honestly, I've been all over the country and I've found something to appreciate about every part of it. It's all beautiful in different ways - I'm a mountain and trees kind of gal but I still find the open prairies breathtaking and the sagebrush, wild flat parts of Texas are like something out of a movie. And everywhere I've gone I've found friendly people - in some parts of the country, it comes out in different ways. Southerners tend to be very open, New Englanders are reserved but there are good people everywhere.

The food down South is wonderful. I really miss it.

Blue-Bell Ice Cream, Ranch Style Beans, Smokehouses, Pecan-Sweet Potato Pie...all great.

And the people are nice too.

Pickers sitting in circles on every square inch of available land downtown. If you like mandolin, fiddle, dulcimer and banjo, you gotta head on down to Floyd on a Friday night.

about once a month. Floyd is old hippy heaven

You can get a lot more house for your buck down here. The food is great, too. :)

it's going places!:evilgrin:

not the kudzu thread again!

but I'm sure I'll give it a whirl soon.

Moon Pies: :patriot:

there would not be 100 proof Southern Comfort.

Without 100 proof Southern Comfort, I would not have missed my 20's in a drunken haze.

Without the drunken haze, I would not have nearly died at 29 yrs old.

Without nearly dying at 29, I would not have considered getting sober.

Without getting sober I would not have my 2 beautiful kids, a good job, a roof over my head, friends, and the ability to Dream again.

Without the ability to Dream again, I would not be opening my bookstore in 11 days!!!

So thanks to the South for helping me get my bookstore! :yourock:

RL

:thumbsup:

I hear that it's beautiful!

especially when it gets colder up north. Lots of character. Beautiful natural areas like the Smoky Mountains. Fun liberal enclaves like Asheville, Atlanta and Austin.

dropping the top on the car and taking a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway on a summer day. It's absolutely the best.

Southerners do not seem to mistake activity with accomplishment. They don't hurry up just to hurry up. There are, of course, exceptions.

Sometimes it's good to cook vegetables for an entire day

Pork is its own Food Group

Grits - but not the runny ones

They did tell the Federal Government to go to Hell. That is a necessary thing every so often.

Peaches, Pecans, RC Cola, Goo Goo Clusters

Charleston, SC.....New Orleans, LA.....Savannah, GA

Real Barbecue

Spanish Moss

But yes, the blues too......and you......

:blush: :hug:

You can't appreciate the beauty of a bayou until you're at water level, and paddling along in a kayak. I haven't done that in over a year. And I live across the street from a bayou! Time to get some exercise.

and kick-ass bourbon! Where would I be without my Makers Mark?

Coke, RC, Barqs, Doctor Pepper... The South knows how to infuse sugar into a body.

Of course, here up north we have "Leninade"... ;-)

The smell of the salt air combined with orange blossoms. Ahhh

and music.

Still don't want to live there.

:shrug:

...it really does exist and I've been fortunate enough to experience it through the years.

But I will say one good thing about the South: The Southern Poverty Law Center.

The South's grand old tradition of progressivism has gotten lost in the red tidal wave of hate spew by the rednecks, hillbillies, Bible-thumpers, yip-yops, clodhoppers, trailer-dwellers and cousin-marriers.

Bring back John Edwards and Southern progressivism!

Oh, and all you idiots tooling around Eastern Virginia and the Carolinas in pointy-toed boots and Stetson hats; stop with the cowboy wanna-be crap, will ya? The cowboy is a symbol of the WEST. The hats, the boots, the long sheepskin cattle-drover coats are Western apparel. Back East, they didn't have ranches, they had plantations.

Not to mention the important history of resistance against the super wealthy...the yeoman farmers who recognized the bigger threat to their values of economic independence and self-reliance were the wealthy, slave owning plantation owners.

especially John Edwards. I just close my eyes and melt away...

Thanks you all for giving us our Chaucer.

Biscuits and gravy, greens, corn muffins, BBQ, jambalaya, pecan pie, the list goes on.

but that's about it. I lived in Florida for 3.5 years and I am glad to be back in Maine.

The South had to confront racism in ways that the North did not, and in some ways still hasn't. A lot of people showed a lot of courage.

Also, if it weren't for all the gay men who moved to NYC from the south, I'd never have been taught anything other than stuffy European manners.

of little family run restaurants that cook real food like you get at home.

and the wonderful Marsalis family. I've seen Ellis, Wynton, and Branford Marsalis in concert (not all at the same time though).

Making all you poor Yankees wish for what you can't have. :rofl:

If you kill it, you ate it.

If it flies, it dies.

Your room looks like the wreck of the Hesparus.

Go clean up, you look like star mother's youngest child.

This thread gives me the bots.

And so on, Etc. Etc.

Southern colloquialisms passed down to you, anyone? :-)

"Your room looks like the wreck of the Hesparus."

I didn't know anyone said that besides my mother.

Something that irritates me in movies is the use of ya'll as singular. I've lived in the south most of my life and I've NEVER heard anyone call one person ya'll. It's plural ALWAYS.

The very best thing about the south is country ham with biscuits.

"Star mother's youngest child" is a children's book, so that's where that
saying comes from. I like it.

is a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. You really didn't know that?

"WRECK OF THE HESPERUS"

It was the schooner Hesperus,
That sailed the wintery sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax,
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.

The Skipper he stood beside the helm,
His pipe was in his mouth,
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old Sailor,
Had sailed the Spanish Main,
"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
for I fear a hurricane.

"Last night the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see!"
The skipper, he blew whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Colder and louder blew the wind,
A gale from the Northeast,
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
And the billows frothed like yeast.

Down came the storm, and smote amain
The vessel in its strength;
She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed,
Then leaped her cable's length.

"Come hither! come hither! my little daughter,
And do not tremble so;
For I can weather the roughest gale
That ever wind did blow."

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat
Against the stinging blast;
He cut a rope from a broken spar,
And bound her to the mast.

"O father! I hear the church bells ring,
Oh, say, what may it be?"
"Tis a fog-bell on a rock bound coast!" --
And he steered for the open sea.

"O father! I hear the sound of guns;
Oh, say, what may it be?"
Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea!"

"O father! I see a gleaming light.
Oh say, what may it be?"
But the father answered never a word,
A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
With his face turned to the skies,
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
That saved she might be;
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave,
On the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe.

And ever the fitful gusts between
A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf,
On the rocks and hard sea-sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck,
And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool,
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,
Ho! ho! the breakers roared!

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,
On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman's Woe!

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Kim Basinger
Norah Jones
Ashley Judd
Andie MacDowell
Mary Steenburgen
and the late great Molly Ivins

That's what I like about the South!!

x(

Cold sucks. x(

and the scenery is great...

Belle, was born in Georgia...she is a sweetie.

Um... no... that's not too good.

I'll have to get back to you on this one.

And the incredibly friendly people we met in New Orleans.

And "My mother is a fish."

He lived long enough to escape from a Confederate hospital in Tennessee, so that was a good thing.

...that I thought the South would be a pretty decent place to live. At least the places I visited in Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee.

nt

Wyoming is NOT in it.

Fried foods, rock and roll, etc.

I traveled there in the old hippie days.

Small towns. Best people i ever met.
(Though I made sure I had a hair-cut first) :)

I don't know where the South begins but we went through the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana all the way to Mardi Gras. Then Texas and Mexico.

You Americans are wonderful people.

I like to fish, what can I say. :shrug:

Shhh...I'm a Southerner...snarf!

especially in NOLA.

What else needs to be said.