The South

A show on TV got me thinking last night and got me up early this morning. The show was on National Geographic channel and it was about the south. Not south like Florida but "The South". You know like south of the Mason Dixon south.  For those that don't know the Mason Dixon line is the border between Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware. A divide between slave states and free states. A line drawn in the sand basically to stop to families from fighting over the border between their lands. The line was drawn and marked by large blocks over the 300 mile border by two men named you guessed Mason and Dixon. An Astronomer and a Surveyor in the late 1730's.

I thought so much on this show that I got up and watched it again this morning. On the show,Uncensored with Michael Ware he was trying to explain to everyone else in the world the differences about the south. The history, the land and of course the people. What is different about people from a place where time doesn't move as fast as it does north of the Mason Dixon line. Seemed like race was what he wanted to discuss, but an Artist Jonathan Greene from Charleston, SC said it wasn't a monochromatic thing and meant it. It is a cultural thing and bringing the history with them and trying to deal with it the best they can. Mom would have liked his mindset. Food and family and a sense of place. A sense of being. By the way absolutely beautiful artwork.

Some of the people spoke of etiquette and civility but the word that really caught my ear was decorum. A man that was basically a party crasher said he is accepted at these events because he knows how to act. But I think those things the etiquette and civility of the south are how you should act but by Google's definition decorum is behavior in keeping with good taste and propriety. To which I had to follow up with the definition of propriety, the details or rules of behavior conventionally considered to be correct. I would have more simply defined it as knowing how to act based on where you are.

Mom always wanted us to behave as we should when we were in front of certain people. There was a way to speak in front of my grandmother and grandfather or other relatives. Especially when you visit their house. There was a way you behave at the table and a way to behave at church. Which made me think of the picture on the internet of a woman sitting inappropriately on the couch in the Oval Office while a formal picture is being taken. Some say that the problem is that she has her feet on the couch. I don't have a problem with feet on the couch in your own house but when you are a lady wearing a dress you should act appropriately for a lady wearing a dress as well as a lady visiting the Oval Office weather you work in the office or not. A picture is worth a 1000 words. I thought when I saw the picture that a woman wearing a dress of an age above childhood should not be sitting on her knees. If you would like to tuck one leg under yourself with the other on the floor would have been more appropriate than kneeling on the furniture. That was inappropriate decorum.

Throughout the show people spoke of tradition. One person spoke of land that had been in their family for over a 100 years and one referred to themselves as stewards of the land. Another concept some don't get. Just because you own the land doesn't mean you can do whatever you want. You have to think of the implications on the environment. Not just how big of a house can I build and these trees will grow back. Which follows suite with the book I just finished reading Ecology of a Cracker Childhood by Janisse Ray who shared how being raised in a junk yard in Georgia got her to study ecology and the effect we have on the environment especially the environment of the longleaf pine.

 Another lesson mom always wanted to impress upon us was that once it is gone you can't always get it back. I remember how she fought to not have the Surfside Holiday Inn built on the north end of the beach. Once they build one high rise there is no stopping them from building more. Well another 20 years later and guess what. It is now a rare thing to find a mom and pop motel that a family can afford to stay in on the beach and to some that is ok but to my mom that in itself was a crime. People should be able to afford to come and visit our beautiful beach and enjoy fresh fish and spend a day at the beach without getting their car towed or paying $10 to park their car. But some would say she was standing in the way of progress.

On the show they spoke of progress being part of the problem and the solution. One person said he wished South Carolina was more like the rest of America and he said but he feels America has become more like South Carolina. Some people are trying to bring back some of the food and culture to the area that has been lost over time and others just want to rehash what everyone already thinks that people of the south are all racist and keep pushing that idea into the media and further impressing it among the general population that, that is the way it is in the south. I know everyone is not racist.

 I think some of my mother's sense came from her family history. They had lived in the same city for over 100 years. Her family was in Louisville, Ky before the Civil War started. Some of her family was in Indiana 50 years before that. At some point I believe the south is in our dna. Even though it is technically considered a northern state.  Knowing how to behave isn't enough if we don't share the stories and beliefs of those before us with the children of today. Otherwise how will they learn. I know it is not transferred through dna. The kids have to be shown that they have it in them. They need to sit at the knee of a person that has experienced things and learn why they happened and not just read them on the internet. They need to know how to behave while they are sitting at that person's knee. How to act at a party and when you are invited to a person's house you bring a gift or an offering of food to show your appreciation for them having you over. I know these things seem silly. People today are so casual in action and dress and never go to a place where you have to dress a certain way so when invited they don't know how to act.

To me that is the romance of the south. The love of your history good and bad. The love of your food and knowing that your grandmother used to make and love the same things that you love. The love of place and the land. Appreciating the natural resources you have and not exploiting them. Those are the lessons mom would have wanted to impress upon the future and I will have to agree. I don't think this knowledge is something we can afford to skip a generation.