What Is The South?

What is the South?

When I moved to North Carolina I felt I knew the answer to that question. I would have described the South as any state that took sides with the Confederacy during the Civil War. Given that I’m from the North, and therefore immune to the subtleties of Southern culture, I like putting such matters into simple categories.

However, I’ve learned that most things in the South are not that simple.

Not long after I came here I established a group of friends who were born and bred in the South, and my closeness to them belied my lack of tenure. One fair summer afternoon a few of those friends and I set out for a meeting in Greensboro. We arrived with time to spare, and it seemed that the best thing to do with an empty hour was find a place to fill our stomachs.

We located a restaurant set back on a tributary road. The place spoke eloquently of what a small café in the South should be. There was a long counter with red padded circular seats on columns of chrome. A mirror extending along one wall reflected the four of us hunching over our plates.

One of us picked up a copy of the local newspaper and read aloud the lead from a story. There had been a racially oriented dustup in South Carolina. “Isn’t that terrible,” my friend said, “you’d think those people would learn.”

“Yeah,” I said, “but you know, down here I haven’t found race relations to be all that bad. Up in Chicago we had far less reason to be proud. Blacks and whites seem to get along pretty well in this part of the world.”

He looked at me as if I were hopelessly ignorant, “Well friend, Moore County isn’t really the South. Too many golf courses, potters selling high priced bowls and Yankees like you.”

I reflected on that for a moment, but knowing I’d traveled further a field than just Moore County I asked, “The rest of North Carolina, that would be considered the South, wouldn’t it?”

“Sort of,” he said in a patronizing tone, “but North Carolina isn’t the 'real' South. Here you have the research triangle, world class schools like Duke and UNC. You’d have to go a lot further south from here.”

“Further south, like Texas or Florida?”

“No,” he objected, “Texas isn’t the South. Texas is the West. And as for Florida, that really isn’t the South either.”

He paused for a long moment and then reconsidered, “Well, that’s not entirely true. Florida’s Southern if you’re in northern Florida. ”

Now I was hopelessly confused, but being among friends I wanted to get it straight, “So in Florida you have to go north to be in the South? And if you go west, even if you’re in the south, then you’re not in the South anymore?”

“Yes,” he said, “That’s pretty much it.”

It was tough going, but I felt I was making progress. “So South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana – states like that would be the 'real' South.”

“Mostly,” he said, “but Atlanta’s getting less and less Southern. Way too many people in Fulton County vote like Democrats.”

Just then his voice lifted in a quizzical way, “As for Louisiana and Mobile? Well, the jury’s still out if you can be a Catholic and Southern at the same time.”

He knew I was Catholic, and I knew he was pulling my chain, but I rose to the bait. “How about Scarlett O’Hara?” I protested, “She was Catholic.”

“Yeah, right” he replied, “and Mickey Mouse is a Baptist.”

We left the subject there. I had learned a little, and what I didn’t comprehend would have to remain a mystery. The important point was that North Carolina is in the South, but it isn’t all together southern either.

The vagaries of that concept were too subtle for someone from Chicago. Like a lovely woman friend is so fond of saying, “George, dear, you just aren’t southern enough to understand.”

I didn’t expect that the fine points of that discussion would ever come in handy, and for a long while they didn’t. Then, a few weeks ago, I visited Raleigh. That day the weather was unusually cold and a persistent wind sliced though clothing that was insufficiently heavy.

As I turned the corner on Salisbury Street I fell in step with an older woman. She greeted me using those long liquid vowels that are so pleasant to hear. My hands were stuffed in my pockets and my shoulders were arched to cover my ears. “A cold one today, isn’t it?” I replied.

“Yes,” she said, bending low against the wind, “All my life I wanted to live in the South, but somehow I wound up in Raleigh.”

Assuming the air of someone who shared with her a secret understanding I said, “Yes ma’am, I know exactly what you mean.”