Haunted by the South....

Lately I've been on a "southern" kick...which I find odd....since, you know, living in the South...
For some reason, I look around and realize I'm in the south...all it's weirdness, kookiness and downright southerness....I'm also struck by a sense of "duality" for lack of a better word. Simply meaning, how the south is a thing unto its own? And how it's finding itself in the 21st century while being firmly rooted in the past.....

And I'm also finding more and more ways "the south" has popped up all around me through other blog posts, books, etc....

But let me say...

Hollywood always gets it wrong....

And I always get mad when somebody in a movie is from "Alabama" and they're a complete idiot...

And the "oh, so southern" eccentricities...think Steel Magnolias, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, etc....how much of this is true...?

Let me just say I've never seen someone do a hoe-down at a wedding i.e. Steel Magnolias...

I have been to a confederate themed wedding where the men carried black powder muskets and shot them over the heads of the wedding party....and it was in a cornfield....

I've been to Birmingham, Montgomery, Savannah, Memphis...all the "southern" places and they all seen pretty normal...

I mean, yeah, you get some random craziness, cows in the middle of the highway, dog's headstones in the backyard, any given Sunday at trade day, passing tent revival's and wondering where they keep the snakes...but it's mostly normal? (Not that handling snakes is normal unless you're from up the road a ways).

What do people think of the south? I'm always intrigued when someone from out of state moves here and finding out how they like our accents, grits and iced tea.

So, I look around, try to be non biased and try to figure out where these people get their info...

Are southerns weird? Are we all eccentric?

Oh, by the way, that's a new painting up there...