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You know I’ve decided that the nation that can laugh at itself is
the nation that will survive. For example, look at Iraq…. off the
top of your head, do any cute Iraq jokes come to mind? Something
along the line …”this guy from Baghdad was walking down the road
when…” I didn’t think so. In the news reports I’ve seen those folks
over there aren’t happy people. Perhaps they don’t have much to be
happy about, but was it always this way? Didn’t they ever have any
humor? Here in the states, we can find humor about any region of the
country you want to go to.
The Southern region where we live probably has more fun poked at it
than all of the other regions combined. Where else but the South can
you find, Hee-Haw, Green Acres, Mayberry RFD and the Beverly
Hillbillies? Montana can’t help us nor can Vermont. Nope the South
has it’s own way of talking and methods of describing things. The
following was sent to me this week by some kind soul who was reading
my mind and knew I needed some more material to make this column
stretch to it’s normal length. Bless their hearts…..which leads us
to: Someone once noted that a Southerner can get away with the most
awful kind of insult just as long as it’s prefaced with the words,
"Bless her heart" or Bless his heart." As in, ‘Bless his heart, if
they put his brain on the head of a pin, it’d roll around like a BB
on a six lane highway." Or, "Bless her heart, she’s so bucktoothed,
she could eat an apple through a picket fence."
There are also the sneakier ones: "You know, it’s amazing that even
though she had that baby 7 months after they were married, bless her
heart, it weighed 10 pounds." As long as the heart is sufficiently
blessed, the insult can’t be all that bad. I was thinking about this
the other day when a friend was telling about her new Northern
friend who was upset because her toddler is just beginning to talk
and he has a Southern accent. My friend, who is very kind and,
bless her heart, cannot do a thing about those thighs of hers, was
justifiably miffed about this. After all, this woman had CHOSEN to
move to the South a couple of years ago. "Can you believe it?" said
her friend. "A child of mine is going to be "taaaallllkkin liiiike
thiiiissss."
Now, don’t get me wrong. Some of my dearest friends are from the
North, bless their hearts. I welcome their perspective, their
friendships and their recipes for authentic Northern Italian food.
I’ve even gotten past their endless complaints that you can’t find
good bread down here. And the heathens, bless their hearts, don’t
like cornbread! The ones that really gore my ox are the native
Southerners who have begun to act almost embarrassed about their
speech. We’ve already lost too much. I was raised to "swanee", not
swear, but you hardly ever hear anyone say that anymore, I swanee
you don’t. And I’ve caught myself thinking twice before saying
something is "right much", "right close" or "right good" because
non-natives think this is right funny indeed. I have a friend from
Bawston who thinks it’s hilarious when I say I’ve got to "carry" my
daughter to the doctor or "cut off" the light. She also gets a
giggle every time I am "fixin’" to do something. And, bless their
heart, they don’t know where "over yonder" is, or what, "I reckon"
means. My personal favorite was my aunt saying, "Bless her heart,
she can’t help being ugly, but she could’ve stayed home." To those
of you who’re still a little embarrassed by your Southerness: Take
two tent revivals and a dose of sausage gravy ‘n grits and call me
in the morning, bless your heart!
And to those of you who are still having a hard time understanding
all this Southern stuff, bless your hearts, I hear they are fixin’
to have classes on Southerness as a second language! Thanks to you
for these fine words. Isn’t this the absolute truth? Even
though I have lived down here all of my life I still get confused.
My wife, whose roots are from Louisiana, sometimes speaks in a
tongue so foreign even I have a hard time understanding what she
means. For example, when the room temperature is too cold, she’ll
tell me…”Would you turn the air down?” Now, to me, that means if
it’s 72 degrees she wants it to go to 70 degrees, to her it means
move the thermostat to 75 degrees. I love her anyway, in spite of
the fact that she can make a four syllable word out of the word
gulf. As in the Guuuullllllffff of Mexico. Makes me a better person
and that’s what counts.
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