My South is...sipping the nectar from honeysuckles every summer
There's this book I've been eyeing since last fall. Everytime I read a little bit of it, it makes me tear up...in the best of ways. The book is My South and it's been culled together from a Turner South special in which people discuss what makes the South *their* South. I wrote something similar, but with less detail almost three years ago. I realize there are some people who think of the American South as a place filled with inbred rednecks and Christian fundamentalists, but y'all, we are so much more than red states and Billy Graham. We are front porch rockers and lemonade in the summertime. We are Bill Clinton and Al Gore. We are Elizabethtown and Fried Green Tomatoes. We are three out of the past four American Idols. We are grannies and aunties and family reunions in church basements. We are New Orleans and Memphis and Charleston and Music City U.S.A aka Nashville. We are Elvis and Ellen Degeneres. Our sultry summers invite you to slather on the sunscreen and laze around in the pool if you're an adult or put on your cutoff shorts and play in the creek if you're under twelve. Our roots are deep and our culture is rich. My heart is full to the brim and spilling over actually right now.