GIRLS RAISED IN THE SOUTH

Southern girls know bad manners when they see them:
Drinking straight out of a can.
Not sending thank you notes.
Velvet after February.
White shoes before Easter or after Labor Day.

Southern girls appreciate their natural assets:
Dewy skin.
A winning smile.
That unforgettable, Southern drawl.

Southern girls know their manners:
"Yes, ma'am."
"Yes, sir."

Southern girls have a distinct way with fond expressions:
"Y'all come back!"
"Well, bless your heart."
"Drop by when you can."
"How's your mother?"
"Love your hair."

Southern girls don't sweat....they glisten.

Southern girls know their summer weather report:
Humidity
Humidity
Humidity

Southern girls know their three R's:
Rich
Richer
Richest

Southern girls know their vacation spots:
The Beach
The Beach
The Beach

Southern girls know the joys of June, July, and August:
Summer tans
Wide brimmed hats

Southern girls know everybody's first name:
Honey
Darlin'
Sugah

Southern girls know the movies that speak to their hearts:
Gone With the Wind
Fried Green Tomatoes
Driving Miss Daisy
Steel Magnolias

Southern girls know their religions:
Baptist
Methodist
Football

Southern girls know their country breakfasts:
Red-eye gravy
GRITS
Country ham
Mouth-watering homemade biscuits

Southern girls know their cities dripping with Southern charm:
Richmond
Charleston
Savannah
Birmingham
Nawlins'

Southern girls know their elegant gentlemen:
Men in uniform.
Men in tuxedos.
Rhett Butler, of course.

Y'all know Southern girls are quick on the drawl.

Southern girls know their prime real estate:
The Mall
The Beauty Salon

Southern girls know the three deadly sins:
Bad hair
Bad manners
Bad blind dates

Southern girls know men may come and go, but friends are fo'evah!

Now you run along, Sugah, and send this to some other Girls Raised In The South, i.e., Southern Belles.
Or to some of yo Yankee Girlfriends to make them green with envy!

---

This was written by Robert St. John, executive chef and owner of the Purple Parrot Cafe, Crescent City Grill and Mahogany Bar of Hattiesburg, MS. and sent to me by a friend on my block.

Thirty years ago I visited my first cousin in Virginia. While hanging
out with his friend, the discussion turned to popular movies of the day.

When I offered my two-cents on the authenticity and social relevance of
the movie Billy Jack, one of the boys asked, in all seriousness; "Do
you guys have movie theaters down there?" To which I replied, "Yep. We
wear shoes too."

Just three years ago, my wife and I were attending a food and wine
seminar in Aspen, Colo. We were seated with two couples from Las Vegas.

One of the Glitter Gulch gals was amused and downright rude when I
described our restaurant as a fine-dining restaurant. "Mississippi
doesn't have fine-dining restaurants!" she exclaimed and nudged her
companion. I fought back the strong desire to mention that she lived in
the land that invented the 99-cent breakfast buffet.

I wanted badly to defend my state and my restaurant with a 15-minute
soliloquy and public relations rant that would surely change her mind.

It was at that precise moment that I was hit with a blinding jolt of
enlightenment, and in a moment of complete and absolute clarity it
dawned on me -- my South is the best-kept secret in the country. Why
would I try to win this woman over? She might move down here.

I am always amused by Hollywood's interpretation of the South. We are
still, on occasion, depicted as a collective group of sweaty, stupid,
backwards-minded and racist rednecks. The South of movies and TV, the
Hollywood South, is not my South.

This is my South:
a. My South is full of honest, hard-working people.
b. My South is colorblind. In my South, we don't put a premium on
pigment. No one cares whether you are black, white, red or green with
orange polka dots.
c. My South is the birthplace of blues and jazz, and rock n' roll. It
has banjo pickers and fiddle players, but it also has B.B. King, Muddy
Waters, the Allman Brothers, Emmylou Harris and Elvis.
d. My South is hot.
e. My South smells of newly mowed grass.
f. My South was the South of The Partridge Family, Hawaii 5-0 and kick
the can.
g. My South was creek swimming, cane-pole fishing and bird hunting.
h. In my South, football is king, and the Southeastern Conference is
the kingdom.
i. My South is home to the most beautiful women on the planet.
j. In my South, soul food and country cooking are the same thing.
k. My South is full of fig preserves, cornbread, butter beans, fried
chicken, grits and catfish.
l. In my South we eat foie gras, caviar and truffles.
m. In my South, our transistor radios introduced us to the Beatles and
the Rolling Stones at the same time they were introduced to the rest of
the country.
n. In my South, grandmothers cook a big lunch every Sunday.
o. In my South, family matters, deeply.
p. My South is boiled shrimp, blackberry cobbler, peach ice cream,
banana pudding and oatmeal cream pies.
q. In my South people put peanuts in bottles of Coca Cola and hot sauce
on almost everything.
r. In my South the tea is iced and almost as sweet as the women.
s. My South has air-conditioning.
t. My South is camellias, azaleas, wisteria and hydrangeas.
u. In my South, the only person that has to sit on the back of the bus
is the last person that got on the bus.
v. In my South, people still say "yes, ma'am," "no ma'am," "please" and
"thank you."
w. In my South, Sunday is for church. The Ten Commandments mean
something.

In my South, we all wear shoes & clothes....some of the time. My South
is the best-kept secret in the country. Please continue to keep the
secret....it keeps the idiots away.