Tips for visitors to the South
If you are going to live, or visit in the South, you
need to know the rules. In an effort to help outsiders
understand the rules of the Southerner's mind, the
following list will be handed to each person as they
enter a Southern State.
1. That farm boy you see at the gas station did more
work before breakfast than you do all week at the gym.
2. It's called a "gravel road." No matter how slow you
drive, you're going to get dust on your Navigator.
Drive it or get it out of the way.
3. The red dirt - it's called clay. Red clay. If you
like the color don't wash your car for a couple weeks - it'll be permanent.
4. We all started hunting and fishing when we were
seven years old. Yeah, we saw Bambi. We got over it.
5. Go ahead and bring your $600 Orvis Fly Rod. Don't
cry to us if a flathead breaks it off at the handle.
We have a name for those little 13-inch trout you fish for - bait.
7. Pull your pants up. You look like an idiot.
8. If that cell phone rings while a bunch of mallards
are making their final approach, we will shoot it. You might want to ensure it's not up to your ear at the time.
9. No, there's no "Vegetarian Special" on the menu.
Order steak. Order it rare. Or, you can order the Chef's Salad and pick off the two pounds of ham and turkey.
10. Tea - yeah, we have tea. It comes in a glass over ice and is sweet. You want it hot - sit it in the sun. You want it unsweetened - add a lot of water.
11. You bring Coke into my house, it better be brown,
wet, and served over ice.
12. So you have a sixty thousand-dollar car. We're real impressed. We have a quarter of a million-dollar combine that we only use two weeks a year.
13. Let's get this straight. We have one stoplight in town. We stop when it's red. We may even stop when it's yellow.
14. We eat dinner together with our families. We pray
before we eat (yeah, even breakfast). We go to church
on Wednesdays and Sundays and we go to high school football games on Friday nights. We still address our seniors with "yes, sir" and "yes, ma'am," and we sometimes still take Sunday drives around town to see
friends and neighbors.
15. We don't do "hurry up" well.
16. Greens - yeah, we have greens, but you don't putt on them. You boil them with salty fatback, bacon or a ham hock.
17. Yeah, we eat catfish, bass, bream and carp. You really want sushi and caviar? It's available at the bait shop.
18. They are pigs. That's what they smell like. Get over it. Don't like it? Interstate 65 goes two ways - Interstate 40 goes the other two. Pick one.
19. Grits are corn. You put butter, salt, and maybe even some pepper on them. If you want to put milk and sugar on them, then you want cream of wheat - go to Kansas. That would be I-40 West.
20. The "Opener" refers to the first day of deer season or dove season. Both are holidays. You can get pancakes, cane syrup, and sausage before daylight at the church on either day.
21. So every person in every pickup waves? Yeah, it's called being friendly. Understand the concept?
22. Yeah, we have golf courses. Don't hit in the water
hazards. It spooks the fish and bothers the gators -and if you hit it in the rough, we have these things called diamondbacks, and they're not baseball players.
23. That Highway Patrol Officer that just pulled you over for driving like an idiot - his name is "Sir," no matter how young he is.
24. We have lots of pine trees. They have sap. It drips from them. You park your Navigator under them, and they'll leave a logo on your hood.
25. You burn an American flag in our state, you get beat up. No questions. The liberal contingent of our state legislature - all four of them enacted a measure to stop this. There is now a $2.50 fine for beating up the flag burner.
Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we
are here we might as well dance.