Southern Sensibilities

This is not a character defect, just a simple statement of fact: I was not born in the South. My actual birthplace is Reading, PA, which I can barely recall, and other than a few childhood years in New York and a stint in the Marine Corps, I have spent all my life in the South. My parents were quasi-southerners (dad from Texas, mother from Baltimore), I married a lady from Memphis, and I graduated from the University of the South. End of credentials recitation.

I bring that up because I've been thinking lately about this place we call The South. (I've always appreciated Ray Blount, Jr.'s comment that the South is a place, north is a direction.) After last week's comments here about globalization, Bill Robertson gave me a heads up about an interesting TV interview with James Peacock, author of "Grounded Globalism", a book which explores the implications of this international phenomenon with our regional home. I hadn't heard about the book, and it was a fascinating interview. More later, I hope, about this.

While I haven't yet had a chance to read his book, I suspect it's another in the huge bookcase of efforts to describe and understand the South. Scores of people, maybe more, have written about our region's distinguishing characteristics, those things which make it different from, say, the midwest or the northeast or (heaven forbid) of Florida. Scores of people, that is, except me, so without any pretense of originality, let me weigh in with a few of my own experiences with these southern sensibilities.

Like Diogenes' endless search for an honest man, I'm looking for a citizen of the South who might, for once in life, say, "Gee, I don't know what to think about that." Folks down here have opinions, major league opinions, on just about everything from barbecue to basketball, and we aren't at all bashful about unloading them on the unsuspecting inquirer. Usually these discussions will begin with playful jesting, but it's easy for them to quickly deteriorate into acrimonious woundings which leave scars that last for years, even generations. So forewarned: if you think politics and religion are hot button items, don't even go near basketball.

Another field in which southerners obsess has to do with their fascination with family. Not just with history and genealogy and charts, but with real skin and bones people, their kin. It was only this morning, at breakfast (over a bowl of grits, of course) that I heard someone speaking intimately of his third cousin, twice removed. Seriously. Years ago, when we arrived in Wilmington, the gracious and unforgettable Miss Fanny deRosset (and you'd better pronounce that right) greeted Ann by asking, "...and who were you?" People who live in Des Moines or Scranton don't talk like that. Who you are is a part of who you were.

Again: Southerners are gifted (or cursed) with a communal memory, and for better or worse we spend a lot of time talking about "how it used to be". Nor am I fussing about that dead horse, saddled with the corny euphemism "The Recent Unpleasantness". Spare me. The only people I ever hear talking about the Civil War are from, as we say, "away". No, I'm talking about more important memories, like dances at Lumina or Junior Lenten Choir or when Oleander Drive was two lanes. The memories of how it was enter into just about every conversation, for these are not just interesting or peculiar acts of history but a part of who we are today. In Sacramental Theology class we called it "anamnesis", but that's a subject for another time and another forum.

I can't close these ramblings without noticing the Southern sensibilities for religion. Ann and I have enjoyed driving through very state (save Hawaii, until the bridge is built), and one of the defining characteristics of the South is the fact there are more churches than liquor stores. More churches, in fact, than anything else. Old story: two Baptist churches on the courthouse square, and the distinction is explained, "That one says there ain't no hell, the other one says the hell there ain't." However this is explained, and trust me, there are a zillion explanations, the fact is that in the South we take religion seriously. The bumper sticker theologies and the guilt-driven threats drive me nuts, but in the South one of the first questions asked of a newcomer is, "What church do you go to?"

This list could go on and on. I haven't even touched on the South's singular contribution to America's musical heritage, or that it may be the most racially, culturally, religiously, or economically integrated society in the entire country, or that it is the home of America's greatest writers, or that it has the most exotic taste in food combinations since the invention of chittlins and livermush and burgoo. All those things are part of the Southern sensibilities.