Southern Legitimacy Statement:
I was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. Even though I have lived in New York City for many years, I am instantly recognizable by my accent. When I taught English to high school students in Arequipa, Peru, I informed them that the pronoun for second person plural is “y’all.”
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
I, Christy Alexander Hallberg, teacher of English at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC, do solemnly swear that I was born and raised in Greenville, NC, and that my mama and grandma were raised in Beaufort County, NC, and that my daddy and his daddy and his mama were raised in Wayne County, NC, and that all three of my dogs scarf strips of fried chicken when available, and that my grandma’s homemade quilts hang on quilt racks in my bedroom, and that, while I’ve never seen a dead mule, I’ve ridden a horse named Blue that looked an awful lot like a dead mule, and that, although I think collards taste like sweaty gym socks, I love B’s Barbecue. Yes, folks, I am Southern, hear me roar!
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
Mostly I grew up in the small towns/suburbs of Chicago and northern Indiana. Once my 7th grade geography teacher (Mr. Caranci at Robert Frost Jr. High) remarked that there “weren’t any hills in Indiana.” When I got home and told my mother she called him a “damned Yankee.” Both my parents hail from the hills of southeast Indiana, right smack dab on the banks of the Ohio River where Kentucky is just a stone’s-skip or a quick jaunt over the Madison-Milton bridge (where the gas & cigarettes are cheaper and there’s always a three-legged dog begging for scraps at the Dairy Queen).
Eventually my family moved back here—where our grandparents and great grandparents also worked and lived. People from around here think they’re southern and that should count for something. I mostly say y’all though sometimes I revert back to my northern clip and say youguys. Also I hang out with lots of talented Kentucky writers. They’re teaching me how to pronounce Appalachia and Kudzu and I’m teaching them not to pronounce the s in Illinois.
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
For at least 200 years, my kin have straddled the mountains of the Tennessee-North Carolina border, with much of my family history now under protection as National Park lands. The navigation of laurel thickets is as ingrained in my DNA as my blue-green eyes and my stoic defense of vinegar pie. Still using the same wooden rolling pin my Grandmother did when I was young, and the same old White Lily recipe still taped inside the kitchen cabinet, I teach my daughter how to roll out biscuit dough, and now letting her shape the scraps by hand into the last little “funny biscuit” just for her.
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
I am a native Alabamian, born in the wiregrass of Dale County and raised in Montgomery. I was educated at Auburn and Pepperdine. I am a university lecturer and have worked abroad for most of my teaching career. Since 1856, all Auburn students, including English majors, have been required to register for, take and pass a mandated course entitled “Fundamentals of Agriculture.” At Auburn, this is commonly called “Plowing 101.” As an Auburn alumnus (class of ’73 and ‘81), I am proud to say I passed “Plowing 101” the old-fashioned way. This should, therefore, more than satisfy the “mule” pre-condition of this journal. Moreover, I would love to elaborate on my plowing experiences at the “Loveliest Village of the Plain” and to expatiate more upon how this time spent behind a mule, this vital training at a great Southern university, more than prepared me for further graduate study and university life in California, with all its various and sundry extra-curricular activities, but my mother will probably read all this; so, as a true Southern gentleman, I must respectfully decline. God Bless, War Eagle and I hope I pass the audition.
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
Grew up in Maryland, exploring creeks & woods & such. Great grandfather Moses Schwartz born in Nashville, TN, of which NY TIMES reported, in 1901: “He was well known and esteemed as a hustling liquor dealer at Louisville, KY. He became President of the Louisville Deposit Bank…” Grandfather Morton L. Schwartz, of Louisville, KY. bred and owned stallion Bold Venture, winner of the1936 Kentucky Derby & Preakness and who sired Assault (Triple Crown winner) and Middleground (Kentucky Derby winner). Never met either of illustrious Southern forebears, but would like to think I come from hearty/hardy stock.
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
I have spent my entire life in North Carolina, so I’m immersed—how the landscape swells with honeysuckle, wild weeds, red clay. How my car turns salt-stained in the mountains and near the Atlantic. How the anatomy of Southern boundaries all clamor for simple grace. Yet I defy Southern logic: I hate sweet potatoes and sweet tea.
Check out one of our favorites, Curtis Dunlap, the Tobacco Road Poet, and watch the video he’s posted on his blog.
The NC Haiku Society Blog is just a click away.
Southern Legitimacy Statement
In my rearing, I came to know that food is almost a religion in the south. Very few events, large or small, happy or sad, don’t involve eating. Food-oriented mixings can be viewed as something like a First Prize, Second Prize, or a Consolation Prize. Not only are there copious spreads at weddings, funerals, and reunions there are gatherings to attend with food as the central purpose when one gets a new job, loses a job, or quits, especially if in a huff. Then there is food as a major consideration when a girlfriend acquires a new boyfriend, when one finds out one’s spouse is cheating, when getting divorced, and when trying to talk one spouse out of murdering another. Educational pursuits are a source of dining too. A little one’s passing through kindergarten, headed for “real” school, necessitates getting together to celebrate, and to eat, in case this milestone might be the only one the youth in question achieves to distinguish himself. The later equivalent of this sort of event is when someone’s child graduates from high school or fails to. Not to be forgotten are the meals held upon a release from jail or when someone is about to be a guest of the state for a spell, when a new preacher arrives in town or a congregation has ousted one they’ve been trying to boot and finally has. No matter what the reason for the occasion to gather and eat, there’s something every true southerner never mistakes no matter how things are done outside of the south, and if they are done differently are in error, of course: dinner is the name of the mid-day meal and supper the evening one.
Geoff’s at NC State, and you don’t get more southern than that (ahem, right Tarheels?).