Southern Living
Posted: October 23, 2008 8:04 amFiled under: Kevin, Uncategorized
The foot-stomping home-grown blues sounds of the North Mississippi Allstars were vibrating the trailer windows when she said, “Let me get Atticus taken care of.”
“You know, it’s pretty bad when a dog gets fed before a man does,” came the reply.
‘Mr. No Nuts’ is what I affectionately call that mutt. You see, he’s been inoculated.
That’s what Gerri would say. Her malapropisms are an almost constant source of conversational entertainment. It’s a completely adorable part of her personality.
Actually, he’s been castigated. And, I had coffee before the dog got fed.
Last night, I cooked a slab of pork spare ribs on the gas cooker, along with some peppers and a sweet onion. We’d already enjoyed some sparkling wine from Spain while walking around the yard and admiring how much the young poplar trees in front had grown. They’re now over ten feet tall, having grown at least five feet this year’s growing season.
By the time the ribs were ready, it was getting dark, and I’d already cut up the slab to share with the next door neighbor and her kids.
Tonight, it’s going be venison marinated in apple juice. I’ve tried almost everything to take away that gamey taste associated with venison, and the only thing I’ve ever found that works is apple. And besides, deer love apples.
That’s part of life in the South. There’s a magazine dedicated to it, and it’s called “Southern Living.” However, that’s the New York-ized, sterilized, homogenized, ‘we gotta’-sell-some-magazines’ version. Real Southern Life is your neighbors across the street walking over to talk with you for no particular reason. (Actually, her reason was to apologize for hollering out something salty at the idiot that drove down the street 90-to-nothing while kids were playing nearby.)
Another part of the essential Southern experience is fishing on the Tennessee River, driving by cotton fields that look like oceans white with foam, lots of lush greenery including hardwood trees and grass, and moderate temperatures in the season change. Not to mention only moderate temperatures, but an autumn color show that rivals anything that could come down a fashion runway in Paris. Oh, I almost forgot the rockets.
Yeah, rockets. You know… those spaceship kind of things.
Here in the South we have scientists of all stripe, ranging from biological, mechanical, electrical, and more. Some of ‘em work for the federal government while others work for private enterprise on things like defense systems, developing more effective treatments for asthma, diabetes and a host of other chronic diseases. What’s amazing it that the treatment is a medication delivery system which is inhaled, meaning there’s no need for needles. What’s more, the company is in a nondescript lot with public housing nearby.
And, the folks that brought you ‘Man on the Moon’ are part-time farmers. You may recall the Lunar Module. As part of NASA’s overall plan, it was sparked by young President John F. Kennedy’s speech to Congress May 25, 1961. Landing on the moon was thought to be especially difficult because it was unknown how deep the dust was. So, to prevent miring down and getting stuck in lunar soil, giant pads were developed to spread its weight. The idea for those feet were inspired by the sometimes muddy fields they plow.
This past weekend I went to the tiny Tennessee town of Bell Buckle. Located about an hour’s drive southeast of Nashville, with a population around 400 and a half square mile in size, it ensconces the Webb School, a private boarding school for grades 6-12 which has produced 10 Rhodes Scholars, more than any other school. Webb’s annual Arts & Crafts Fair brings about 30,000 people into town over the weekend.
Since Webb School’s 1870 founding, they have continued exemplary leadership, and admitted females, Indians and Asians long before federal law prohibited discrimination. Their Honor Code, signed by every student - “I pledge my word of honor as a Webb gentleman or lady that I will not lie, cheat or steal.” - was Princeton’s model. Their motto, “Noli res subdole facere,” is Latin for “Do nothing on the sly.”
But the Southern experience is much more than brains and brawn. It’s about tradition, friendship, fellowship, loving and helping one another. It’s about things that can’t be measured by any tool, quantified by any calculator or weighed by any scale.
In essence, the Southern experience is about the human heart. It’s about treachery and redemption. It’s about infidelity and forgiveness, anger and love, freedom and commitment. There’s something to be said about the dignity found in a shared experience, good, bad or indifferent. There’s something to be said about the realizations that emerge from the knowledge that there’s something bigger, higher and more powerful than you, your neighbors or your crazy kinfolk, and that it’s going to last forever.
Actually, the Southern experience can be found anywhere, because its warmth and strength is found in the closeness of the human heart.
