Southern Stereotypes: Reflections on Growing Up in the South

While I was born in the south, I was raised by Yankees. I have never been considered a southerner to those “from ’round here,” and I suppose that’s a good thing. I once told someone that I was a southerner, and I was immediately told, “Just ’cause a cat has kittens in an oven, that don’t mean we call ’em biscuits!” Another person once told me that I am, “a pearl in a big buttery bowl full of grits.” The older I got, the more I realized exactly what is meant by “being southern,” and why I can never join this exclusive club.

The most obvious reason for this being that my family tree actually forks. I have never been attracted to my great aunt’s brother. I have never kissed my cousin. I don’t go to family reunions to look for dates. I don’t bring dates to my family reunion, only to find that it’s their reunion too, and, unlike the person in the song, I am not my own grandpa. I don’t drive into small towns and find that everyone of the one thousand residents is somehow one of my third cousins. I choose to date people that don’t share my same last name.

Another way that I am different is my cooking. While I can make a great buttermilk biscuit, I don’t feel the need to drench it with gravy. In fact, I don’t feel the need to drench anything in gravy. For that matter, I don’t cover my food in egg and cornmeal and then submerge it in an artery clogging oil. I don’t wake up in the middle of the night with a desire to crumble cornbread in a glass of buttermilk and then eat it with a spoon.

I don’t put ice or sugar in my tea, and I don’t douse everything with Louisiana Hot Sauce. I do, however, eat things with names that I can’t pronounce. I season my food with more than garlic salt, and butter, and occasionally, I even clean my skillets. I drain my grease into the garbage can and not into a jar to be re-used later.

The clothes I wear mark me as an outsider too. My pants come up to my waist, so you can’t see my crack when I bend over. In fact, I can zip my pants while standing. I don’t have time to lift my neighbor’s pliers and tug the zipper while lying down. That might mess up my hair. By the way, I don’t need an entire can of aquanet to stiffen the top of my mullet either. My clothes aren’t see through, and none of them are made of imitation leather. My teeth are still firmly embedded in my gums.

I don’t consider them an accessory only to be worn for special occasions. Likewise, I don’t look funny without the baseball cap that I have to leave off when going to the funeral home. I realize that make-up is more than powder blue eyeshadow and blood red lipstick, just like I know that fishnet stockings and an over sized sweater does not constitute formal wear.

While I did receive the same education as every other child living in the south, the difference is that on me, it actually worked. I ain’t plumb dumb. I can read and write. I can even spell! I know that there is more to drink down here than coke. When I do order a coke, I know that irony is in their response, “What kind?”

I know you are probably thinking that growing up down here must have been awful. How did someone manage to be a productive person through all of that? I had some help. After all, not everyone down here is unintelligent. In fact, some of the geniuses of the south have taught me quite a lot.

For example, did you know that Sasquatch is the capital of Canada? Did you know that Canada is the fifty-first state of the United States? Also, Eskimos evolved from walruses. While I will never be invited into their club, think of all that I would have missed if I had never lived here. I might have lived my entire life without those bits of wisdom.