Although I was born in Greenville, NC, went to public schools there, graduated from a southern college (UNC-CH), and have lived my entire life in Eastern North Carolina, my wife Bedie says that I still have a lot of Yankee blood in me. Both of my parents were born and raised in New Jersey—my mom along the Jersey shore and my dad in Elizabeth. Apparently, one cannot become a true southerner in one generation, but I’m trying
Aside from our slow talking twang, we have a lifestyle that people of a northern persuasion simply cannot comprehend. Since I am not southern through and through, I can point out some differences between the correct way of life verses the northern way without being judgmental—it’s just the facts.
We do not have “Pig Roasts” for example, we have pig pickin’s. This ritual is not just about eating some slow cooked, well-seasoned with a good ole boys’ vinegar-based sauce, it’s about the entire process. All true southern boys own their own homemade pig cookers, on wheels, so they can go at a moment’s notice to any location in the area where people are gathering. The cooks buy their whole hogs, sometimes with head on and sometimes without, light the charcoal at five-six in the morning, heave the pig onto the grill top belly side down, pop a beer, and start telling stories. The secret sauce, that each cook has developed, is a better kept secret that Kentucky Fried Chicken’s eleven herbs and spices. As the cooks add more charcoal, pop goes another beer. After six-eight hours of this process, the pig is done, as are the cooks. Let the pickin’ begin! That is a literal phrase—the hungry guests line up, waiting their turn to pick meat directly from the hog and onto their paper plates.
Speaking of cooking pigs, another southern delicacy (I’m glad that I am not a true southerner), is hog head stew. That is what it says. A stew, consisting of a hog’s head, a large pot of water, vegetables, Ice (Irish) potatoes and onions. Recipients devour the tasty concoction as if they had good sense. Add some chitlings (chitterlings), maybe some pork rinds, a couple of pig’s feet, and you have become a true southerner. (For me, with my Yankee blood, will stick with leg-of-lamb with mint jelly).
Growing up, I fell into the southern tradition of eating a moon pie along with a RC Cola every chance that I had. If it wasn’t moon pies, certainly a Pepsi-Cola with a small bag of peanuts poured into the bottle sufficed.
Every supper (the meal served at night) consisted of sweet tea. At restaurants, one simply has to order “tea”, and a tall glass of sweet, ice (iced) tea arrives within minutes. On a trip to New York City once when I was on a buying trip with Belk’s, I ordered a “tea”, just as I had my entire life. Much to my dismay, a cup of hot tea arrived. What? No! So, I asked the server if I could have a glass of iced tea—she looked at me like I must have just landed from Mars. She obliged, however, and bought me a glass of unsweet ice tea. You have got to be kidding me. “Ma’am, do you have sweet tea”, I inquired. This time I must have flown in from Pluto. “No, we don’t have that,” she abruptly exclaimed. Oh well, I was learning, but I truly did not understand how these folks survived without sweet ice tea with their meals. THEY are the ones from Mars.
Also in New York, I went to McDonalds for a quick lunch. I couldn’t go too far wrong at McDonalds, I thought. After receiving a simple order of a hamburger, fries, and a Pepsi, I noticed that I did not receive any packages of ketchup that were kept behind the counter. So, I went back and quietly and politely asked if I could have a couple of packages of ketchup. You would have thought that I had just called her mother a pig, or worse. She just about bit my head off as she tossed two packages of ketchup onto the counter. Again, I was learning how to act. The meek southern boy approach just didn’t resonate in New York.
I learned fast in my role as a buyer for Belk’s as well. The vendors were rude, ornery, and simply not interested. I learned that I had to put their rudeness right back in their faces before they would respect me. Once I stood my ground, demanded this or that, squeezed them on the price, or terms or whatever, they respected me and I developed some friendly relationships.
Another example occurred on one of my first trips to New York. I took a taxi to my next appointment, and the fare was $4.75. I handed the driver a five-dollar bill, hopped out of the car, and said “keep the change”. Oh my, what a faux pa. The driver jumped out of the car, came at me hollering, handed me the quarter tip and fumed “Keep your quarter, you need it more than me”. In my petrified state, I quickly took the quarter and high-stepped it into the building where I was to meet my next vendor.
I learned— “when in Rome…”.
Speaking of “when in Rome…”, people from “up north” really need to understand this concept prior to making the move south. “This is the way we did it back home” is not an endearing phrase for southerners. Anything that a northern transplant says after that is basically “blah blah blah blah blah.” Signs posted in yards throughout Southport, NC (a charming, historic waterfront community) proclaim: “Don’t change Southport—Let Southport change you”. Good advice. Slow down, my northern friends, relax, smell the air, try some grits, take a swig of sweet tea, and be thankful that you are not “back home”.
Before GPS, when in need of directions, one simply stopped and asked a local. (I dare say I never tried that in New York). A typical answer was: “Yea, I can hope you. Go down yonder to Aunt Lizzie’s Lane, stay on it a fer piece, turn at the first black-top road onto Seed Tick Neck Road. At the old church, bear this way to Possum Hill Road and go to the end of the bakker field and look on this side by the cornfield and there it is. You can’t miss it”.
My wife Bedie’s family are indeed true southerners, several generations deep. They were from southern Pitt County and really had little to do with anyone from northern Pitt County. Big John, Bedie’s paternal grandfather, was as quite the character and jokester. Although he maintained a rough exterior, to his grandchildren, he was a big ole teddy bear. Bedie loved him despite her mother’s disapproval of his boisterous exterior. One night, when Bedie spent the night with her grandparents, John took his wife’s false teeth that she kept on a nightstand in a glass of water, opened up the teeth and stuck a biscuit in between the teeth. Bedie freaked out the next morning upon seeing her grandma’s teeth “eating” a biscuit.
When we moved to Bath, NC, a small, quaint, historic, rural town of about five hundred people, we discovered that moonshine was still available if you knew the right people. My neighbor, a native of Bath, knew the right people. I mentioned that I wanted to try some real moonshine, as I had never had any. He obliged and brought me a pint in a mason jar. I asked him where he got it, and his only reply was “You don’t need to know”. That was fine with me. I took one sip and quickly realized that I was not man enough to handle this, so the pint simply stayed in the back of my refrigerator for months. At a small dinner party that we hosted for a few couples from our church, I showed one man my moonshine. He, too, wanted to taste it, so he did. We served lemonade that night and no alcohol since it was church folks attending. I noticed Pete (not his real name), kept making trips to the refrigerator and returning with a glass of lemonade for his wife. Repeatedly, he went to the refrigerator. I thought that she really must like Bedie’s home-made lemonade. When the dinner was ALMOST over, Pete stood up, helped his wife up, held her steady from the back, grasping her waist, and headed out the front door in a train like motion. They didn’t say goodbye, kiss my grits, or anything—they just left. She was smashed! Upon further review, I noticed the next morning that my pint of prized moonshine was all but empty. She drank close to a pint of the bootleg liquor. I suspect that she would have had a hissy fit if I ever mentioned anything to them, so I didn’t.
When we moved to Bath, we met an extraordinary lady named Hennie, who was in her eighties. She “put up” (Canned) vegetables every year and agreed to help us (Bedie) put up vegetables. They put up tomatoes, made apple sauce from local apples, put up strawberry jam, fig jam; you name it, and she canned it. This differs from puttin’ in. Bedie, as a young girl, worked long, hard hours in the summer “Puttin’ in bakker” (tobacco) on her aunt’s farm. Puttin’ in here meant priming (picking) the leaves, stringing them on a tobacco stick and hanging the tobacco leaves in a heated barn to cure until the bakker killed out. Puttin’ in a boat is rolling it off of the trailer and into the water. And of course, puttin’ out is another term used for certain girls—I think that I’ll leave that explanation unexplained.
That’s enough for now, ya’ll. I’m going to grab a glass of sweet tea and sit a spell on the porch.