Southern Exposure

On January 21, Martin Luther King Day, we drove down a small state highway to a public park.  The rolling fields, open spaces, derelict barns and countryside on both sides of our vehicle got me thinking about what I have learned about the South. Open spaces do that. They draw out Big Thoughts. What follows are a few.

My Grampa (Boppa) sparked my youthful curiosity with eight-track tapes of old-time country music stars like Kenny Rogers, Charley Pride, Johnny Horton and yes, Johnny Cash. Of course, in rural Ontario where he lived, there were also rolling fields, open spaces, derelict barns and countryside on both sides of the highway. But riding around in his Ford pickup, I began to associate country music with the South. And the funny accents I heard on TV —thank you, Beverly Hillbillies re-reruns— also helped. In my adolescence I watched Ken Burns' documentaries about the Civil War and later on about jazz and the blues.

The South, as a concept, rather than a place that normal people lived, seemed somehow foreign, slow paced, and different. But not the 'different' image reserved for England or Australia. I spoke 'American', but the upstate New York variety thanks to Rochester TV stations. The annual exodus of Canadians southward to warmth during the bitter cold of winter held a separate charm. South of the Mason-Dixon line remained distant, a place of capital H History, real BBQ and palmetto trees.

During my first long motorcycle adventure across the continent, on the way west my buddy Brad Lozinski and I rode through the Shenandoah Valley, down through to Tennessee. 

I even stopped at the intersection of US 61 and US 49 in Clarksdale, Miss., where blues tourists pay their respects at the spot where it's said Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for musical genius.

I drove down a couple of times in the 90s, tasting spring break In Florida one year, and indulged in a caffeine-fueled frenetic weekend drive to see the Durham (NC) Bulls in their home stadium, and back. I also read Pat Conroy novels and studied the history of the civil rights movement. I watched Hollywood's take on things southern: Bull Durham, Mississippi Burning, Forrest Gump, Deliverance, Glory, and Fried Green Tomatoes, among others. But I always suspected that I would never understand the South just by visiting, reading, listening to the African-American blues greats, or watching movies.

My life journey eventually churned up a chance to live and work here. So the Rising Family™ has been enjoying and absorbing southern culture for about 20 months now. I can't claim to fully understand it yet, but I sure as heck am appreciating the Southern lifestyle.

Yikes, this prelude has become rather long. So I’ll just plunk in a few photos as foreplay for the next post.

This storefront in Tennessee, reminded me of Northern Exposure, the quirky favorite TV series of mine from the 1990s.

General Lee replicas throughout the South. 

The Rising Daughters at a pumpkin patch last autumn. 
This farm is not too far from the birthplace of Confederate General and first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, Nathan Bedford Forrest.  Chew on that one until the next post.