Drive A Hundred Miles And The Barbecue

The South Is Like My Favorite Pair Of Blue Jeans. It's Shrunk Some, Faded A Bit, Got A Few Holes In It. It Just Might Split At The Seams. It Doesn't Look Much Like It Used To, But It's More Comfortable, And There's Probably A Lot Of Wear Left In It.

Every Southerner, I Think, Knows People Like Bill Clinton, Maybe Not Quite As Smart And Maybe Not Quite As Liberal, But Kind Of A Glad-handing, Country-club Yuppie Southerner. The Problem Is We Don't Have Labels For Middle-class Southerners.

Any Southern Nationalist Movement, Especially One That Wraps Itself In The Confederate Flag, Is Going To Be Viewed With Suspicion, Given The Historical Record.

Maybe We've Been Brainwashed By 130 Years Of Yankee History, But Southern Identity Now Has More To Do With Food, Accents, Manners, Music Than The Confederate Past. It's Something That's Open To Both Races, A Variety Of Ethnic Groups And People Who Move Here.

I've Occasionally Wished I Had Caller Id. Even Telemarketers, I Hate To Hang Up On Them. I Try To Explain I'm Not Interested, But They Have All These Canned Responses So I End Up Having To Hang Up On Them Anyway.