Well, I live in Orlando, and we may not be Old South, I consider myself a Southerner, in that I live in the SE part of the US.
Plus, you can get sweet tea in Orlando, if you know where to look. That, to me, is the only true sign that you are in the South.
Your referrence to “sweet tea” would lead me to believe that there is some other kind. What is this “unsweetened tea” you speak of?
Born and raised in small town Arkansas, live in my Location: now, which is historically southern, but more recently decidedly not. Oddly enough, what southernness that remains in the DC area is more in the black population. I would imagine it’s more like Chicago or Detroit in that respect…
Yep, I’m a southerner, despite some of my fellow poster’s disdainful omission of my home state from their lists. Arkansas was a Confederate state and anybody who’s been there won’t tell you it ain’t southern, although some carpetbaggers are making inroads…
Born in New Orleans, moved to Texas, then north to Colorado. Got me them southern roots, even though my parents are from Pennsylvania…Now I live abroad, so I’m all messed up with my heritage!
-Tcat
Though I’ve now lived out of the south for longer than I lived in it, I’m from Mississippi and still feel like a Southerner.
For me, it’s the atmosphere. Some places are southern simply because they aren’t anything else. West Virginia is a great example: what could it be other than southern? It’s not the northeast, though it borders it. It’s not the midwest, though it borders that, as well. The accent is right, the cuisine is right, the music is right, it’s the south, darnit. (Even in the northern panhandle. 20 minutes outside of Pittsburgh, right over the border, there are places where you may as well be in Alabama I tell you!)
Missouri and Kentucky are the same way, there’s just no other way to describe them.
Maryland? Well, despite it’s position below the Mason-Dixon line, no, mainly because no self-respecting southern state would elect a Kennedy to their state executive.
But some states are weird, they have to be divided up, and that’s bizarre but again, it’s about what makes sense. Northern Virginia, up in the DC area? Absolutely not southern, but you can’t say that Roanoke or Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, isn’t the south. Florida, beyond the panhandle, no. Texas, certainly, so long as you’re talking about rural, eastern Texas, not the cities and not the west or the panhandle, which are decidedly “southwest” like New Mexico and “west” like Oklahoma, respectively.
The South: It’s A State of Mind.
Kentucky native. We consider ourselves Southern. Parts of the state are more Southern than others. Eastern Kentucky is more
Appalachian culturally. I’ve always considered the town I grew up in in Western Kentucky to be the farthest northern reach of the Deep South. Plus, Jefferson Davis was born 10 miles away.
Was born at Myrtle Beach AFB, South Carolina, then moved around for a while (Dad was in the Air Force) He got out and we lived for about 6 years in Wisconsin. Came back to the Columbia area of SC when I was 12. Have been lovin’ it here since (20 years)!
I did not spend my early childhood in the South, and therefore did not get brought up Southern. I still don’t eat grits and I don’t say ya’ll. But I love the South and I sure do looooves me the Southern Belles!
If not for being born here, I’d be a carpet baggin’ Damn Yankee like hyperjes
You bet your sweet a** Oklahoma is a southern state. While it was not a state during the War of Secession and therefore did not secede, most of the tribal governments sided with the Confederacy because they saw the government in Washington as the immediate cause of their problems. The last Confederate general to surrender to the Union was from Indian Territory: Stand Waite, a Cherokee. He did not surrender until June of 1865, a full month after Appamatox.
I was conceived at Huntsville, Alabama but Dad was reassigned to White Sands a month before I was born. However, since both of my parents were Oklahoma residents, I was born an Oklahoma resident as well. Therefore, I can consider myself a southerner despite being born in New Mexico.
Anyone who thinks Oklahoma isn’t a southern state has obviously never been here. A quick drive down into the southeastern corner of this state will dispell that notion in less time than it takes to skin a 'coon. We also have the best Chicken-Fried Steaks to be found anywhere, a Southern food if ever there was one
well, OK chicken fried steak isn’t grits but it’s pretty damn southern.
It’s some sort of cold brown liquid. I’m not sure who drinks it, actually.
True story, when Ivylad was in the Navy he was transferred from San Diego to Charleston, SC. Well, we began to drive cross country after being stationed in sunny Southern CA for nine months. We stop for lunch at a Quincy’s in Mississippi. I give my order for iced tea to the cashier and she says, “Sweet or unsweet?” in a lovely drawl.
“Thank God!” I exclaimed. “I’m home!”
I was born and raised in Nashville and have family in Shreveport, with my roots primarily in Alabama. Now I live in D.C. I have to disagree with tlw in that, while some states are debatable and have pockets of Southern culture in them, like MO, KY, MD, WV, or DE; that it is not sufficient to make them Southern. Case in point, Texas, which while it has a great deal in common with the South, is not the South. It’s just Texas. The culture is perceptibly different enough that it breaks the mold. I was always told this, anyways, and I stand by it given the Texans I have known, who are always talking up the distinctive culture and history of their state. Break somebody down from the South, and you’ll often wind up with some kind of pan-Southern allegiance. A Texan’s basic identity lies not with the South, though, but with Texas. Contrast that with LA, which also has a highly distinctive culture, but which doesn’t have that don’t-mess-with-Texas-style attitude that could otherwise set them apart. I would include Ark. as a Southern state, btw. I have heard people from Oklahoma say they are Southern. My gut feeling is that they are fooling themselves. I have lots of attachment to certain types of Southern heritage and love it, but as a liberal, it’s naturally kind of conflicted and unresolved. We keep a diary of my great-great-grandfather’s, who was a Col. at Vicksburg, a slave owner, and who was quite opposed to secession. It’s basically a chronicle of defeats, setbacks, grief and death. I’ll get a chance to read it again this weekend. My cousin and I have discussed transcribing it, because it’s pretty faded, and we all treasure it. Ultimately for me, it’s the food, the accents, the trees, and above all, the genteel and respectful way in which people treat each other that I miss. Of course when I lived there I hated the right-wing politics and Christianity, but it’s easy to look at it romantically from a distance anyways.
Whoops, sewalk, didn’t see your post. I guess I should tread lightly, then. I get the feeling we’ll be talking past one another here ultimately, as we may have different ideas about what makes the South the South. For starters, though to yankees it might sound Southern, the Okies I have known sound more “western,” though this alone isn’t a disqualifier. Maybe it’s the landscape, which is too arid and dry to be recognizable to any kind of Southerner. Maybe it’s just the longitude. One of the most defining and crucial features of the South is the heightened sense of class conciousness coupled with a legacy of plantation economies, which I get the feeling OK lacks in both cases. If there simply is no plantation artistocracy, and the politics are so heavily influenced by Indian tribes, then you have left the South and entered a new frontier, to my mind. Having a Confederate gen’l isn’t exactly proof of OK’s Southern-ness, as KY produced Jeff Davis, though it is pretty interesting. I n any event, I’d like to learn more about what you think makes Oklahoma Southern, and definitely would like to learn more about OK generally. I look forward to having any of my misconceptions about your state cleared up.
Yep, born in southern Tennessee, been slowly making my way up the state since.
“Southern” is summer air that is thick with humidity and the smell of honeysuckle along a dirt road. It is eating dinner on the screened porch because it is just too damn hot in the kitchen. Southern is paper fans in church, keeping old ladies cool (they’re wearing hats and white gloves). “Southern” is red clay, ground into the knees of your jeans. It is kudzu, creeping over an old house that has long since been abandoned. If you listen closely you’ll hearing the sound of kids who lived there, playing ‘kick the can’ and catching lightning bugs in a jar. “Southern” is Mama and Daddy. “Southern” is your grandparents still saying “colored” and not realizing that it isn’t polite. “Southern” is knowing where the “colored school” was located. It is having a few faded old pictures of a young man in tattered clothes and no shoes. He’s carrying a gun and off to follow Lee, or Jackson, or Pickett, or Hill. He probably didn’t own any slaves, and was fighting because everyone else was. Besides, there weren’t any jobs anyway. “Southern” is ACC basketball, the four corners, and the Jefferson Pilot Network. It is grits and rat killings, and bluegrass on the radio on Saturday mornings. Southern is homemade peach ice cream. It is Budweiser in bean fields and Friday night high school football and Miss Tobacco Festival and The Old Rugged Cross and “y’all” and “come again” and lime aid and RC Cola and moonpies and Big Oranges. “Southern” is a beagle, or blue tick, or Walker laying under the forsythia until he hears you come out the door. Then he’s right there by your side. It is all of those things, and more besides.
Born in Massachusetts. Moved to Florida (Tallahassee, not the Land of Retired Yankees or the Land of Transplanted Caribbeans) at age of 2 & did the toddler thru nursery thing, then was taken to New Mexico. Returned to the southland (Valdosta GA) to do six years of elementary & start junior high. Parents and all prior ancestors are southern.
Me: Loud resounding no to team sports, fishing, fist-fighting, obligatory Christianity, knuckle-dragging troglodyte politics, and that male-culture bonding thing. Enthusiastic yeah boy to cornbread, turnip greens, rutabagas, fresh pork, fried chicken, buttermilk. Shrug of shoulders and ::big yawn:: to NASCAR, country music, television in general, jello salad. Grin and yeah I reckon to pick-up trucks and exploring rutted-out dirt roads, switching manifolds and carburetors, and saying “yonder” & “fixin’ to” & “cut it half in two” & “y’all been there or you ain’t”, and watermelon on a hot evening with those green curly ellipse-thingies smouldering to keep the mosquitos off.
Not only am I from the South, I’m from the rural South 
Which, in my humble opinion, is the best you can get.
Born and bred in rural Tennessee, about 30 miles from the great Mississip - thanks, but you can hold the jokes; I’ve heard plenty. I love the place and all its quirks, even though I want to eventually move to a Southern city when I’m out of school and settling down to raise a family. Some people question my Southern-ness for a variety of reasons (“Whaddya mean, you’ll have unsweet?”) but primarily because, apparently, I don’t slur my syllables together enough. I suppose that comes from having a mother who lived the first twelve years of her live in St. Louis.
Really, I can’t imagine living in a place where you can’t go anywhere you need while barefoot, or where saying “yes ma’am” and “bless you” isn’t standard, or where front porches are just for looks. I don’t want to live in a place where I don’t need air conditioning or where the kudzu will take over if I’m not careful. I’m not a big fan of Southern Pride (with the big S and the big P), but I am proud to be a home-grown Southerner.
I also don’t really want to get into the debate of who is and who is not a Southerner, but I will say this…you don’t have to be from the South to love it for what it is.
I am just south of Jax and north of Orlando- but I consider myself a Southerner. I am one of that rare breed- a Florida Cracker.
(unsweetened tea? ewwwwwww)
I’d been toying with the idea of another thread with a title something like “And That’s What I Like About The South” (from the old song that Phil Harris sang) that wouldn’t be so much aimed at Southerners but for anybody with fondness for things Southern.
But some of the replies to this thread seem to make that other thread unnecessary. Some fine words here already.
If you’re a fan of haiku in the traditional Japanese sense, perhaps you’ll find 100 Mississippi Delta Blues Haiku ™ By Geoffrey Wilson © worth reading. They have a magic that’s hard to beat.
Texan so southern, but not wrapped up in the confederate southern stuff. Just south.
I was born outside Chattanooga in Cleveland, Tennessee tand have lived here all my life. My mother’s from Manhattan and my dad is from rural Tennessee.
I like the area well enough due to being a generally loyal person but considering I hate football, NASCAR, fishing, and most things stereotypically Southern and that I’m a liberal atheist in a sea of conservative Christians, I feel out of place at times and would like to move eventually.
Also, to me, the cultural South consists of West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
Well if it is hard for you to think of Florida as southern, I’m guessin git depends on what part you are thinking of…the panhandle isn’t referred to as LA (lower Alabama) for nothing you know! BUt…I must confess, I am not from there. I am kind of from a hidge podge. I am from Tampa, which kind of is and kind of isn’t south.
Believe me, if you go 30 miles east you are definitely in redneckville and the accents and occupations (and gunracks) will let you know it, but there is also an ethnic mix about Tampa that gives it a different flavor, kind of like New Orleans is a mix of Redneck, Cajun and French…Tampa is Redneck and Cuban. As a matter of fact that is exactly my descent. My Dad is a redneck Irishman, my Mom is a Cuban…I am not completely sure what the hell that makes me except hot tempered and alcoholic. I do have the southern accent and the customs though so that is why I replied. I spent 9 years in Europe and lost most of my accent and then came back to Texas and was surprised that within a week of my arrival all those “honeys” and “yeps” were “creepin” right back in my vocabulary. I was softenin’ my r’s and loosin’ g’s everywhere I looked…amazing how that happens…I don’t know if that makes me southern or not but I reckon I sure do feel at home with them.