Blue Star Chronicles

I love the South. I’ve lived up north. I lived in Asia for a year many years ago. I enjoyed living in different places and getting to know different cultures. But the South is home.

It’s one of those wonderful well-kept secrets from the rest of the country. I often hear about how awful the South is. Everyone knows it. Just watch movies or read opinion pieces that have to do with racial relations or listen to Katie Couric. The South is some kind of backward hillbilly nightmare, according to those who have never been here.

I’ve even read the stereotypical assumptions about the South on European blogs. It seems the whole world assumes the South is stuck in some bigoted time-warp somehow. Think of all the movies about the South and your see what I mean.

The thing is, we lost the Civil War and therefore the victor got to write the history of it. So that’s just that. We have to live with the cartoonish stereotypes formed and perpetuated by those ignorant of the real South.

I’m not complaining. That’s really okay with most of us. There is already much too much of an influx of northerners moving here and we’d just asoon stem the tide a bit. The immigrants seem to want to change us and our way of life. That’s been an on-going theme since reconstruction. A paternalistic view they seem to have of us. They know better than we do how things should be. Southerners don’t like that one little bit and northerners don’t seem to realize how arrogant and ignorant it is.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I have absolutely nothing against anyone from up north. My Beloved Curmudgeon is from up north – about as up north as you can get. He had many of the same pre-conceived notions about the South when we met – but he has educated himself and says he’s very glad to be living here.

We went to a party this afternoon. It was a party for medical professionals who have been participating in a free clinic in the area – a little thank you party. Beloved Curmudgeon was surprised to be presented with a plaque thanking him for his participation. At some point a guy with a guitar got up and started playing and singing. He was joined by a guy with a fiddle and another with a banjo. They were playing a wide variety of music, bluegrass, gospel, early rock n roll. I guess that’s not all that wide a variety – most anything you might hear at the Grand ol’ Opry.

The guy who threw the party was originally from North Carolina. He had made bar-b-que. North Carolina style. I bet you didn’t know that bar-b-que varies regionally. Some of you probably don’t know that bar-b-que isn’t cooking hamburgers out on a grill. Bar-b-que is a Southern thing.

I was never able to get bar-b-que when I lived up north. We found a restaurant that claimed Southern bbq once. But it’s really wasn’t what I would consider Southern bbq. It’s like a Northerner trying to make sweet tea. They just can’t do it for some reason.

The party was fun. It was outside under a canopy in the front drive of the home. You could smell the bar-b-que as soon as you got out of the car. When it came time to eat, I fixed me a plate with cole slaw – making me slaw bar-b-que, it’s delicious. The music was delightful and everyone was friendly and gracious. And there was, of course, sweet tea.

Towards the end of the party, after we had stuffed our faces, we stood listening to the band who were taking requests and had by this time increased by another guitar player and singer. They had set up on the front porch of the house between the Georgian columns so typical of this area. I leaned against the retaining wall that held back the front yard that was a good 5 feet higher than the drive way we were in.

Listening to the music, feeling the warmth of a fire that had been made in the drive as the warmth of the sun started setting, smelling the bar-b-que and listening to the chatter of the guests, I couldn’t help but think that this is how it has always been. I remember afternoons similar to that from my childhood. Getting together with people outside. Eating bar-b-que. No pretense. Just folks doing what folks do. Singing the songs of the South otherwise known as white people’s soul music.

Before we became isolated by television and now computers, that is how we interacted and communicated with others.

As I leaned on that retaining wall taking it all in I thought, ‘I love the South’.