The South

When you open the cooler, a stinky cloud of cajun steam hits you in the face.






We made it down to Louisiana today. There's so much to be said about the South. Growing up in Ohio, we're considered full on yankees by them, but in the actual north, we're just good old fashioned midwesterners who still drive too slow.
I love sweet tea. Actually, I'll sum up my thoughts by saying I married a southern girl. That'd be best. She's sweeter than the tea...and it gives me a little bit of cred when I'm down here. Now I'm not just another yankee...I'm the yankee whose over for the holidays.
Actually, the word Yankee is a great place to go next. It seems to hold a lot of weight down here. Up north, it's just a baseball team and it's not part of our normal dialogue, but down here it seems to be a big stereotype.
Case in point, we were in a bookstore in Georgia a few weeks ago and our singer, Matt, and I were buying magazines with credit cards. He was first in line and the lady asks for his ID. She was probably in her 60's with died black hair and a raspy southern smoker's voice. It takes her a second to find the info she needs because it's an Ohio license but eventually does and Matt walks away and it's all good. I follow suit and hand her my license from Tennessee. She looks it over and says,

"What you doing with him? You think the war is over and yall can just hang out?"



???????



I thought she was joking, but she wasn't. I didn't know what to say, so i just said,

"ya. I thought it was."

That was a weird experience and what she said was completely ridiculous, but there was something charming about the crusty old lady. I think it's because I learned so much about her southern roots from that brief exchange.
I should mention that I'd like to believe most southerners are actually NOT hung up on the civil war like this lady was. If anyone knows better though, i'd love some to explain it to me.

Let's move on to the finer qualities of the south. The hospitality really is warmest down here. There are nice people in the north, east, and west, but not like this. It's in the water here. I can't be this nice no matter how hard I try.
I also love southern food and I have to give the Byers, a family I lived with in Nashville from Habersham, GA, a shout out for introducing me to it. I'd be clueless to sweet tea, fried okra, real chicken fingers, and boiled peanuts if it wasn't for them. Thank you Byers.

So back to being in Louisana. Yesterday, on the drive down, we stopped at Lambert's in Missouri. If you could picture a cracker barrel that is bigger, green, and the servers throw hot rolls at you from across the room and walk around with southern side dishes while you wait, you'd get a little idea of lambert's. I had catfish and it was great.
Then today for food after the show, they brought in a cooler fool of cajun-seasoned crawfish. All I knew of them before today was that they hide under rocks in creeks and I used to try and catch them as a kid. I've never eaten them before and it was definitely weird digging into that cooler to grab one for the first time, but once I got going, it was pretty fun...cultural at least.

So what am I saying all this to really say? Well, I love being a midwesterner, but I've learned a lot about the south in the last 4 years that I never knew and they have a lot of heritage to appreciate. That's really it I guess. If anyone has any opinions, let's hear them, but for now, everybody head to the creek to wrangle up some dinner.