The state of the Country

1st Topic. America seems to be "going to Hell in a hand basket". 1st just let me get this out of the way. If you only have money in the bank, you're naive. My Grandmother always told me: "Always keep a little money on you." Now she didn't mean on your person, she meant in your possession. Everybody needs to keep some money stashed around the house. Now I'm not saying keep all you money in your mattress, but keep something in your house. Have y'all seen what's going on w/ Indymac bank? Yes, I know that the FDIC is suppose to insure your money for up to 100,000 dollars, but Indymac is not the only bank that's in trouble. If all these other LARGE banks fail, will the FDIC be able to cover every body's money? I'm thinking not. If my bank fails, (my bank was not one of the banks on the list) I have a little money stashed in various places so me & my family will be able to eat for a while.

2nd Topic. NAFTA. Does anybody understand what has happened because of NAFTA? Because of NAFTA, big companies like Nike have taken their factories to Asia where they can pay them almost nothing to work. These "big companies" are propping up the economies of other countries instead of their own. I believe that all these companies should be fined for taking their factory and call center jobs away from Americans. Families are hurting here & the Government needs to rescind NAFTA.

3rd Topic. Gas. I don't know what more I can say about gas that my post: Where's the Hell Naw, didn't cover. Bottom line: Americans need to do something about it.

Where's the "Hell Naw?"

My husband (Brian) & I were on our way home this evening when the gas light came on & made that "Ding" sound. That "Ding" sound is a sound I've come to hate. I know I'm not the only person that feels this way. Some of the first Americans went to war over tea. Y'all do remember your history don't you. We went to war over taxes on tea. I'm looking around at the state our country is in and wondering to myself: "Where's the civil unrest?" Why are there no riots or at least some picketing? Where's the "Hell Naw?" The "Hell Naw I'm not payin' 4.00 dollars for gas." When did Americans become complacent? I'm not a complacent person, I'm passionate. I'd love to get a bunch of Mini van Moms together, drive down to the Mobil headquarters & just act a fool. I mean cause a real commotion. Many people don't realize the trickle down affect that's happening. Because gas has gone up, everything has gone up. People are saying they never thought they'd see the day when chicken would cost more than beef. That's because of gas prices. The American government is scramblin' to find a new "gas" source. That new source is Ethanol. Where does Ethanol come from? Corn. What do chickens eat? Riiiight, corn. Because everything travels by truck, food has gone up & will continue to go up. Not that everything else won't go up too, but we can live without a lot of things. Food ain't one of 'em. I suppose we could all become Locavores, but most people have jobs away from home, so when would people have time to kill & pluck chickens or pick the veggies from the garden for dinner. I'm mostly ticked off because there doesn't seem to be enough outrage.

Do you speak Southern?

I know I've said I'm working on a post about southern cuisine, but I can't get passed the five lines I have on it. I still, however, have a lot to say about the southern language. We can "speak gooder fastly" or we can be vivid & extremely dramatic. What I'm getting to today is not just our "low speech" or our dramatic speech, but both. In addition to those forms of speech, we have a way of talking that only other southerners understand. I don't know that we're even aware of it when we do it. I realized it one evening when Brian & I were pulling into the garage. As we were doing that, we were assaulted by a horrible smell that filled the car. Brian & I, in unison, both said: "Ugh... Pole Cat." That's when I began to think about it. I called Jessie, & told her about it. She said she would ask the people who came through her office if they know what a Pole cat is. I can't remember if she did or not. Anyway, I compiled a list of words & pieces of speech that only southerners use. I don't think they fit into the aphorisms or the colloquialisms list. Some of these words aren't even real words. You won't find these words in any dictionary.

• Steaded= to continue an activity you've been told not to
• Riled= to be angered
• Monkey blood= Iodine
• Spell or spells=when someone goes through dramatic emotional changes, high or low
• Stud'in= when you don't care what a person or people think
• Hunker= to lay low because of weather
• The Stimples= Canine cold
• The Hawk= unexpected cold snap
• Pole cat= Skunk
• Holler= screaming or yelling
• Racket= loud noises

Southerners turn a phrase differently. That's because we don't use the same one word that non-southerners use.

• Turn me loose. Or: I'm gon' turn my dog loose on you.
• Get hold of him.
• Get shed of him.
• Cut the light off.

The next 2 turns of phrase would only be used by a southerner because we're the only region that's this dramatic.

• He took to his bed.

That person didn't just get sick or depressed, he had to: Take to his bed.

• He ran a foul of the law.

Again this person didn't just go to jail, he had to: run a foul.

My love of speech has continued to get in the way of all the other Southern things I want to talk about. Eccentric, unique, backwards, I'm happy w/ all those descriptions.

To the extreme

I've been working on a southern cuisine blog post, but I just can't seem to escape our speech. Our speech is just so colorful & expressive. We can't just say:
"It's hot." No, we have to say: "It's hotter than the hinges on the gates a Hell." Yes I am aware I put an "a" where an "of" should have gone. But if I put it that way, it wouldn't have been southern speech. Also, you will find, that our speech is dramatic. Take the aphorism mentioned above, how dramatic is that? We have to say it's hot and then some. We have to take it to the dramatic extreme. We paint as vivid a picture as possible to make sure we're understood. We're a very visual people. Just imagine, the description of Hell in the Bible. Okay, do you have a visual? Now metal surely gets hot, so picture the hinges on the gates glowing red like metal does when it's heated up. Let's take it up another notch to when the metal is passed red and it moves on to white. The hinges on the gates are white hot. Tell me that aphorism isn't dramatic and to the extreme. I would describe my wedding day that way. The breeze that was blowin' felt like a blow dryer. "It was hotter than the hinges on the gates of Hell, Lord ha' mercy." Lord have mercy, is like a punctuation mark at the end of a sentence for southerners. I digress, lets find our way back to aphorisms. "She wouldn't give a crippled crab a crutch, she was so selfish." "He's as crooked as a barrel of snakes." One could use that in reference to a politician. That's also pretty dog on crooked. "I was busier than a one armed hanger, Lord ha' mercy." That would describe me nearly everyday. That few aphorisms are dramatic & to the extreme. Those 2 words can describe the average southerners personality too. Y'all, I'm trying to get out of the language maze I'm in, but its just too irresistible. Just bare w/ me.

Charleston Heston: B. Oct 4, 1923/24 -D. April 5, 2008

Well y'all, Charleston Heston died. I'm still working on The South posts but I needed to go ahead and acknowledge his passing. Charleston Heston, was at one time on my husbands & my list of Old Men Who Could Still Kick Your Ass. He fell off the list because of his failing health. I look on the man w/ both admiration & condemnation. Heston campaigned for John Kennedy & Adlai Stevenson. In '61, he picketed a segregated movie theatre in Oklahoma showing one of his movies. He also accompanied Dr. King on the civil rights march in D.C. Then, for some reason, 20 yrs later he campaigned for Reagan, (who as no friend to the black people)for Bush Sr. & for Bush Jr. He also opposed Affirmative Action. He did a complete & shocking 180. He became a spokesperson for the NRA & while I am a gun enthusiast, I totally disagreed w/ the NRA holding a gun rally only a week after the Columbine shootings which he was a part of. During his speech, he raised a rifle over his head and said: "From my cold dead hands". It was disgraceful and tactless. There's a time and place for everything & that wasn't it. Brian & I put him on the list of O.M.W.C.S.K.Y.A after watching Bowling for Columbine. If you saw the movie, you may recall his reaction to Michael Moore that landed him on our list. Now of course, he is probably more well known for his movies than his political affiliation. Even w/ all the negative things I know about him, I still can't bring myself not to watch The Ten Commandments every year on ABC. He had many great films like, Ben Hur (which he won an Oscar for),Soylent Green & Planet of the apes, just to name a few. In the 90's, I don't know if y'all will remember, he did some Bud Light commercials that were especially funny. Now I'm left wondering, who was the real Charleston Heston? Was it the kind & compassionate man w/ all his mental faculties of the 1960's or was it the grizzled, crotchety, Republican curmudgeon?

Country porch ramblins

Aphorisms, to me, are a southern, linguistic delight. I love the fact that I can take a statement like: "That's a problem,I told you so", and say it 3 different ways. I hope it's a Southern tradition that never dies. I'll break it down for you so you'll know what I mean.

That's a problem,I told you so.

Translation #1: When you lay down w/ dogs, you get up w/ fleas.
Translation #2: You made your bed, now you got to lie in it.
Translation #3: When you stick your head in a lions mouth, you have to work it out that much easier.

You see what I did there? I took one statement and said it 3 different ways. You're not gonna here something like that in Minnesota. Let me give you another example.

I told you to knock it off, now I'm gonna put a stop to it.

Translation #1: I've dipped my last dip of snuff.
Translation #2: That's too much sugar for a dime.
Translation #3: That took the rag off the bush.
Translation #4: You don't believe fat meat is greasy.

You can also describe someones behavior w/ an aphorism. For example:

He/she was shocked.

Translation #1: You could have bought him/her for a penny.
Translation #2: He/she looked like someone just walked over their grave.

Some of my favorite aphorisms are when a simple statement just doesn't convey what you truly mean. For example:

He's/she's a thief.

Translation: He'll/she'll steal the sugar out a cake.

That person looks real bad.

Translation #1: They look like they've been rode hard and put away wet.
Translation #2: They look like 10 miles of bad road.

That persons gon' have trouble ahead.

Translation: They've got a tough row to hoe.

Now let's see if you can translate these next aphorisms to simple statements & if you can, email me w/ your answers.

1. You can't make a silk purse, out of a sows ear.
2. That's fattenin' frogs for snakes.
3. To high to throw your hat up.
4. Every tub has to sit on its own bottom.
5. Can't hold water in a pale.
6. They look like they just stepped out of a band box.

I could go on & on w/ this post because of my love of aphorisms. While on one hand, southerners talk "fastly" w/ less syllables, when we have the time, we also like to convey our strong feelings about something.

Why we talk more gooder fastly

I can't take credit for that title, that's close to the name of a Jeff Foxworthy book. When Southerners are busy or upset, we use colloquialisms. When you need to make a point quickly, colloquialisms are very handy. Now some people have said "it's the dumbing down of our society" & yes some people never learned how to speak English properly, but this post isn't about them, so get down off your soap box. We as Southerners have our on language & there are different dialects of the Southern language as well. I didn't know there were different dialects until I went outside Texas, but was still in the South. In Texas, when we say y'all, we're talkin' 'bout more than one person. In Mississippi, at 1st I would get confused when someone said y'all to me and I was by myself. I wouldn't respond cause I thought they were talking to someone else and then the person would say "hey I'm talkin' to you", and then they would proceed w/ their question. Where y'all from? Where y'all been?, and so on. Sometimes their accents were so funny, I didn't understand them at all. But I digress, let's go back to Texas. When you have a point & it has to be made quick,or you're just using "lazy speech", white folks say they're fixin' to do something. Black folks don't have time for the "X" sound that has to be made for "fixin' so we say "finna". Now both black & white folk don't always have time for "gonna", so we say "gon". As in: "I'm gon to." I think as Southerners we feel that the less syllables we say, the more words we can say. Which also explains why every word that ends in a G, automatically has it cut off. Are you kiddin'? We don't have time for G's. Some people think there's no room for "lazy speech" in language at all, I'm not one of them. I think there's a time and a place for everything. I think it should only be used when you're w/ someone you're extremely familiar with or if you meet someone in a casual atmosphere. Southerners are a xenophobic people, so let non southerners look down on us if they want. We know we're right anyway.