Rules for visiting the South
 

(Note: I claim neither authorship nor total agreement)
If you are going to live in or visit the South, you need to know these rules:

1. That farm boy you see at the gas station did more work before breakfast than you do all week at the gym.
2. It's called a "gravel road." No matter how slow you drive, you're going to get dust on your Navigator. Drive it or get the hell out of the way!
3. The red dirt -- it's called clay. Red clay. If you like the color don't wash your car for a couple weeks -- it'll be permanent.
4. We all started hunting and fishing when we were seven years old. Yeah, we saw Bambi. We got over it.
5. Go ahead and bring your $600 Orvis Fly Rod. Don't cry to us if a flathead breaks it off at the handle. We have a name for those little 13-inch trout you fish for -- bait.
6 . Pull your pants up. You look like an idiot.
7. If that cell phone rings while a bunch of mallards are making their final approach, we will shoot it. You might want to ensure it's not up to your ear at the time.
8. No, there's no "Vegetarian Special" on the menu. Order steak. Order it rare. Or, you can order the Chef's Salad and pick off the two pounds of ham and turkey.
9. Tea - yeah, we have tea. It comes in a glass over ice and is sweet. You want it hot -- sit it in the sun. You want it unsweetened -- add a lot of water.
10. You bring Coke into my house, it better be brown, wet, and served over ice.
11. Let's get this straight. We have one stoplight in town. We stop when it's red. We may even stop when it's yellow.
12. We eat dinner together with our families. We still address our seniors with "yes, sir" and "yes, ma'am," and we sometimes still take Sunday drives around town to see friends and neighbors.
13. We don't do "hurry up" well.
14. Greens - yeah, we have greens, but you don't putt on them. You boil them with salty fatback, bacon or a ham hock.
15. Yeah, we eat catfish, bass, bream and carp. You really want sushi and caviar? It's available at the bait shop.
16. They are pigs. That's what they smell like. Get over it. Don't like it? Interstate 85 goes two ways - Interstate 40 goes the other two. Pick one.
17. Grits are corn. You put butter, salt, and maybe even some pepper on them. If you want to put milk and sugar on them, then you want cream of wheat--go to Kansas . That would be I-40 west.
18. The "Opener" refers to the first day of deer season or dove season. Both are holidays. You can get pancakes, cane syrup, and sausage before daylight at the church on either day.
19. So every person in every pickup waves? Yeah, it's called being friendly. Understand the concept?
20. Yeah, we have golf courses. Don't hit in the water hazards. It spooks the fish and bothers the gators -and if you hit it in the rough, we have these things called diamondbacks, and they're not baseball players.
21. That Highway Patrol Officer that just pulled you over for driving like an idiot -- his name is "Sir," no matter how young he is.
22. We have lots of pine trees. They have sap. It drips from them. You park your Navigator under them, and they'll leave a logo on your hood.
24. No, we don't care how you do things up North. If it is so great up there, why not visit a Northern state or stay there. And no, down here, we don't have an accent, you do.

LOL this is so great :))

And 6. applies to San Francisco too - so many times I had to bite my tongue not to say it out loud!

I don't know what to say other than I live in NC and this does not apply to me.:) And yes..Iced tea is very good.;)As well as hot tea.

I've seen this before but as 'Rules for visiting the Midwest'

Fania, I think Rule number 6 applies everywhere these days but if we're lucky fashion will change soon, one can but hope!

If we are lucky? I can see in San Francisco Haight-Ashbury the fashion hasn't changed since 1960s the summer of love!

Seamus, thanks for a good laugh! Some of it is so true, especially for Southerners from rural areas! :-) Regarding Southerners and waving, my DGD, from Massachusetts, was visiting a couple of years ago, was five at the time, and was walking the neighborhood with me. Observing me waving at everyone, she said, "Granny, why do you do that? You don't know EVERYONE, do you?" I said, "Sweetie, I'm being friendly. It's called being neighborly." She said, "Granny, don't be neighborly when you come to my house in Massachusetts. The neighbor's Dalmation pees on Mommy's flowers every day, and she hates her!" :-d

The only thing I noticed moving south, the yankee bast... that I am, was that my children are taught to call their teachers Yes Ma'am and Yes Sir. I like that.
They also call sneakers-tennis shoes and lollypops-suckers.
Oh and underneath our grass is some god awful red dirt called clay!

Bonniebroad,
That is true in rural areas.Everyone waves to everyone.I am from Raleigh,NC but moved south of Raleigh to a smaller rural area about 7 years ago.Now this "smaller rural area" has grown quite alot.I have met some very sweet people here.:)

That is so funny what your grandchild said to you about her neighbor.

Very true and very funny.
Although, where I grew up it was just a lift of the index finder off the wheel rather than a full wave!

#25 While standing in any line, Post Office, food store, bait shop, you must talk to others in said line.

#17 The ONLY way to eat grits. Sugar?!! Good god. No way.

Seamus,

You gave me my gut laugh of the day...thank you !

With great respect for Southern ways from one of those dam Yankees :-)

Marion

This applies to #14..nothing like some good ole Collard or Turnip greens.

I hear that up North..people eat Dandelion greens.Is this true..if so,I could get some of them out of my yard for free.;)

Very funny post!

I thought #18 was a national holiday. Most of the men I know take that day off from work.

I don't think it is to actually hunt but an excuse to sit in a duck blind and drink brown liquor.

#x+1: "Bless your heart" has two meanings.

I had a good laugh over this list. The late Lewis Grizzard of the Atlanta Constituion used to say I-85 does go north to all the transplants (d*** yankees) who commented on how things were done 'back home'.

Red clay, good for making bricks and pottery, not growing things except crabgrass.

Thanks, Seamus. I just loved it.

Ditto on almost 2/3rds of the number in my small rural MI, IN towns.

Maybe someday when I retire to MI, I will find a small town exactly as you describe in Northern Mississippi, Alabama, or a bit North of there where they will put up with a Yankee for a couple of months a year after Christmas.

And in Minnesota the entire state practically closes for the first day of the hunting season. Wisconsin & Michigan almost the entire state. I know you can't stay on my lake without wearing a bright orange jacket or you are taking your life in your hands.

#6 Please, please I am so sick of looking at bellies here.

Had to copy this to send to my friends in CA. Too funny and so true!

Y'all have a great day, y'hear!!

Born, bred, and lived as a Yankee my entire life. And I say Amen to this list. Mostly. I live in Central Western NJ. Used to be farm country until about 5 years ago. Now the sprawl has hit here. Yeah, we wave to people, have that "red dirt", and many hunt/fish. But I am sorely tired of the urban crap being brought out (droopy pants, for example). And people in the country drive trucks because they need to, not because its a fad. Maybe I need to move south. LOL

Do you chew a piece of corn and smoke a clay pipe at the same time ?

As a confirmed damn yankee (yankee= visits and goes home, damn yankee = visits and stays) I am so pleased this little chestnut has been received in the good humor with which it was offered. Even more pleased to see the responses noting that some of the observations pertain even waaay up north. Geee, do you suppose that maybe it is just possible that we are all just folks, after all?
Bless our hearts...:-p

JJ5, you're lucky it's only the bellies you notice. I see them boys from behind, some of them without underwear. It seems nobody's bothered by this sight in San Francisco.