Okay, so last night (this morning) I was listening to my new favorite station as I did my paper route. It's a classic country station (with less commercials, and more of your favorite country music from the 70's, 80's, and 90's!), and it takes me down memory lane. It reminds me of my childhood, mostly of hanging out in bars with my dad, and eating pistachios from the machines and drinking 'real' cherry cokes. I, alarmingly, know many of those songs wayyyyy too well.

So anyway, back to the subject at hand...

So this song was playing...something about "If Heaven ain't a lot like Dixie, then I'd just rather stay home..." something like that. Something about if they don't have a Grand Ole' Opry, then he'd rather go to hell or New York, which are pretty much the same thing (yeah, I should know the words, right!). There are many, many, MANY songs praising the wonder, pride, greatness of living in the South, etc. Gotta love Dixie.

I totally agree. I love Dixie. I love living in the South. I've thought at times, when I was younger of course, that I would like to live up north sometime. That was mainly b/c I find the accents to be fascinating...but that's about it. I really have no desire to live above the Mason-Dixon Line for any other reason, and really, I'd probably come home pretty soon after being up there a short time. SC is not exactly my favorite state in the Union, and the overbearing conservatism is not a highlight for me, either. Nonetheless, I'd rather live in the South than anywhere else on earth.

Which leads me to my uninformed naiveness. Okay, I've never heard a song, that I can think of right off hand, that praises a state up north. Like, okay, well, there are a few, I guess. Let's see...New York, New York, blah, blah...and something about Chicago. Then there's "We Love LA". I'm sure there are a few more, but really, overall, I don't feel like there's quite as much overwhelming spirit and pride in being northern as there seems to be in being Southern. I mean, there's Southern rock, but I don't think I've ever heard of northern rock. So yeah, I've heard of people being proud to be from a certain city, like Chicago or something (mainly from the Drew Carey show), and Detroit City, or whatever, but not so much just to be northern.

I was thinking about it (I have a LOT of time to think on my route!), and I realized that the north is a bit different than the South. Like, it's much more of a melting pot than down here, even in today's times. I mean, sure, we have foreign Americans (is that pc?), but not in the mixtures and stuff that you see up north (I think, of course, not having spent an enormous amount of time up there). I'll be honest, until we moved to Lancaster and spent a lot of time in Charlotte, I hadn't seen too many hispanics in my life. I can't remember any in any of my classes while I was growing up, and I'm quite sure I wasn't friends with any (not b/c I chose not to be, but I just didn't know any). I had a few friends that were part Japanese and part black (it was one family), but they were about as unique as it got for me. My friends were either white, or black. That was it. To be honest, in the town I lived in, there were even very few blacks, and I didn't know a whole lot of them, either.

That's not really an uncommon thing down here in the South. Sure, some cities have more of one ethnicity than others, but overall, it's those three with a few scattered Chinese, Japanese, Americanese, Look at these! in between. I remember when we went to Washington, DC for a field trip in high school with the band. We ate at a cafeteria on the trip, and I didn't understand a single word that came out of the mouth of a single person I saw there. I was convinced that everyone there was speaking an entirely different language than the person next to him, and I may not have been wrong. I saw a lot of people on that trip that did not speak English, and it blew my mind. I mean, I took German in high school b/c I didn't see a point in taking Spanish (which could really come in handy now). I didn't know any Hispanic people, and I just figured everyone in the world spoke English, and especially in our country. What a HUGE eye opener to find out sometime later that so many languages are spoken in our country! Shoot, even in the English language itself there are so many dialects that you could be speaking English to someone and have no clue what they're saying back in English!

I have so dragged on with this, but it really is interesting to me. I understand if I've lost you already.

Anyway, I see a lot of Southern pride. It's like a lot of Southerners identify themselves with their Southern heritage (for instance, how I capitalize it at all times, and not northern). I would never deny being from the South, even if I do disagree with a lot of the stuff that goes on here, and actually would probably fit in (at least politically) more out west or something. I don't fly a Rebel flag (anymore), but I have owned many, and didn't hang them outside of my house just b/c I didn't feel like people judging me and jumping to conclusions that just aren't true. I won't lie, I've often imagined what it might be like if the South had won the war. Sometimes I wish we had. Now that my life has become so hectic, I sometimes wish I could go back to a slower and more laid back life, such as is the Southern way. Going to church on Sundays ain't such a bad thing. Loving your wife and your dog equally, well....but still...

So, the question I pose to you that do not (or do) live in the South is this: Do you have that same pride for where you are from? Is it common where you are from to be proud of your area? If you've moved from where you are from, do you proudly tell people where you are from, or are you just glad to be gone? I feel like perhaps I'm only seeing the world from my point of view, and I'd love to hear yours.

Okay, this has gone on long enough. I hope you have a great day, and I'll see you soon!