Southern Legitimacy Statement:

I learned all about living in the North the hard way. I lived there. Lived in a little lake-effect town south of Erie where recreation consisted mostly of scraping snow off your car in the morning, at lunchtime and when driving home from work. Then donning your mukluks and walking to the tavern for a sandwich and a beer just so you didn’t have to scrape snow again.

Also lived in Pittsburgh where things were marginally better. Finally figured out that the South is the place to be. Moved to Key West, which is the ideal spot if you’re independently wealthy. I’m not, so for the past 15 years North Carolina has been my happy home. My Southern Legitimacy Statement is mostly this: I hate winter. I’m writing this as we get seven inches of snow. Considering that this is the first measurable snowfall we’ve had this winter, I can live with it.

I am perhaps not as legitimate as the real Southerners. They will not drive in the lightest dusting of snow. They close schools and cancel events when a winter storm cloud crosses the horizon. They buy milk and bread and clear out the supermarket shelves when snow is predicted because, well, they’ve been told that’s what you do when it snows. Doesn’t occur to them that in two days it will be 50 again and the snow will melt and they’ll be feeding bread to the birds and pouring milk down the sink. But I am a Southerner because this is a darned nice place to live and because it’s actually nice to see snow when it’s not a steady diet. And “y’all” is such a genteel and sweet collective pronoun compared to “you’uns” and “youse guys.”

Southern Legitimacy Statement:

In my poem “Connellsville,” which is about my hometown in dreary Western Pennsylvania, I close by saying:

the only North I want to be in
is here in North Carolina
where I have at last

found love and warmth

That about sums it up. While I’ve lived further south — can’t get any farther south than Key West — I will not live any farther north than here. This is my home for nigh on to 15 years now and I I have seen my dream of retiring to Key West mutate into one of getting a beach house at Topsail Island here in North Carolina. Just as I quickly learned to despise tourists in Key West, I almost immediately learned to hate transplanted Yankees complaining about the hot weather. GO BACK NORTH! IT’S THE SOUTH AND IT SWELTERS IN THE SUMMER!

I met my wife here, bought my first home here and have built a full and happy life in Raleigh. I probably should switch over from my brandy nightcaps to some good ol’ Southern sippin’ whiskey like Jack Daniels or George Dickel. Maybe that will be my next project. Sounds like a pleasant one.

Am I a legitimate Southerner? You betcha … I love the South and I’m too legit to quit!

Southern Legitimacy Statement:

Pennsylvanian by birth, I came to North Carolina almost 14 years ago by way of Key West, where I had lived for the previous three years. So I have a few claims to being an authentic Southerner. One is that by living in Key West, I lived as far South as you possibly can and still stay in the United States. Another is that by vowing never to live further North than I am right now, I have staked my claim to the South as my home for as long as I live. In Key West, where residents call themselves “conchs,” you’re considered a “freshwater conch” if you live there for seven or more consecutive years. I hereby deem myself a “born-again Southerner” for living happily in North Carolina for 14 years!

April is National Poetry Month. And this year the Dead Mule has once again put together a diverse group of poets for its April issue. The Mule just keeps getting better and better, if I do say so myself.
Included in this issue (mostly in no particular order) are H. Dale Duke, who sent us [...]

Southern Legitimacy Statement:

I like living in the South because it’s not as far north as the North. In North Carolina, that means instead of suffering the mud-brown, dreary snow-slushy springs of Pennsylvania, we generally get sunshine and warmer temperatures in March and April. Up North, September is only summer on the calendar. Here, we get to experience the warm and temperate weather you would expect from summer. I swore when I moved here from Key West almost 13 years ago that I would never live further north again, and I intend to keep that promise.

Southern Legitimacy Statement:

I like living in the South because it’s not as far north as the North. In North Carolina, that means instead of suffering the mud-brown, dreary snow-slushy springs of Pennsylvania, we generally get sunshine and warmer temperatures in March and April. Up North, September is only summer on the calendar. Here, we get to experience the warm and temperate weather you would expect from summer. I swore when I moved here from Key West almost 13 years ago that I would never live further north again, and I intend to keep that promise.

Editor’s Note:

Harry was in the Mule over 10 years ago now. “I still have the ‘I kicked ass at the Dead Mule’ t-shirt in my closet,” he writes.