A Southern Email Started It All

We all get them...those of us with computers. It's those emails that people send to you and want you to pass on to your friends. I got one this morning and got a hoot out of it. It was a list of little things many of us know about Southerners. I don't mind being poked fun at, 'cause all of these below apply to me.

• Only a Southerner knows the difference between a hissie fit and a conniption fit, and that you don't "have" them, you "pitch" them.
• A Southerner knows that "fixin" can be used as a noun, a verb, or an adverb.
• Only a Southerner knows exactly how long "directly" is. As in "Going to town, be back directly."
• In the South, y'all is singular. All y'all is plural.
• Only Southerners make friends while standing in lines. And when we're "in line," we talk to everybody!

Of course, I always wonder how what I read (or see or hear) relates to what we have in the library. So, I went off to check. I looked for things "Southern."

We have Fried Green Tomatoes by Fannie Flagg on video (VC397), the book Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells (F Wells), and the book Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. But I didn't find Steel Magnolias; that's one we'll have to get! I've had fun over the years either reading the books or watching the videos of all four stories. They represent Southern women pretty good. And there's a lot of funniness in all four stories.

Then I found all kinds of books about things of the South: people, war, plantations, gardening, writing, cooking, poetry and more. Like these:

• Southerners, Portrait of a People by Charles Kuralt (975.04K)
• Embattled Confederates, An Illustrated History of Southerners at War by Bell Irvin Wiley (G973.713W)
• Forgotten Confederates: An Anthology About Black Southerners by Charles Kelly Barrow (G973.7415B)
• Daily Life On a Southern Plantation, 1853 by Paul Erickson (G975.03E)
• African-American Patriots in the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution by Bobby Gilmer Moss (G973.315)
• The Roots of Southern Writing: Essays on the Literature of the American South by C. Hugh Holman (810.9H)
• Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread and Scuppernong Wine: the Fokelore and Art of Southern Appalachian Cooking by Joseph Earl Dabney (641.59D)
• Southern Gardening by Charles Hudson (635.909H)
• Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands by Allen H. Eaton (G741.5E)
• Three Centuries of Southern Poetry 1607-1907 by Carl Holliday (G975.0811)
• Hiking Trails in the Southern Mountains by Jerry Sullivan (917.5S)
• Southern Herb Growing by Madalene Hill (635.7H)

And here's two little books that are classics in themselves about Southern people:

• Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns (F Burns)
• Mama Makes Up Her Mind by Bailey White (F White)

Now, I have to let you know that June Bailey White is a famous Southern writer from just down the road in Thomasville, Georgia. She's a novelist and nationally known NPR (National Public Radio) commentator. And she was the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame 2008 Award recipient for accomplishment by a living author. She's written three books, all of which you can check out from our library.

So, you see, you can never tell what's going to come to you in the form of a Southern email...joke, quote, or whatever. We've got most of it covered here at the Moultrie-Colquitt County Library. Check us out.