North Carolina

Pat and I took a drive through Oak Island this afternoon. It was sunny out and if it had been June or July, the roads would have been busy. Kids holding boogie boards and pink inflatable rafts would have been waiting at the side of the road to cross and go through a public access parking lot to the soft, soft sand next to the calm Atlantic. But it was cold outside. Not snow cold, but stick-in-your ear cold. We drove through and found a spot here, in the parking lot at the marina. We were the only ones walking around, even though all the slips were filled with empty boats, noses pointed out to the open water, but tethered and bobbing like anxious hunting dogs at a tree.

There’s a reason I love traveling in the off season. While I love the crowds and the fact that the local coffee shop stays open past 3 p.m. during the summer, I also love walking about, looking at things up close. There’s an anonymity to the solitude, the implied permission to look at things and wander aimlessly. I love this, though, I admit, because I love being alone most times. Today, this empty parking lot reminded me, again, that sometimes solitude is enough.

Here’s how it goes:

He or she looks me up and down and asks, “Where are you from?” Occasionally, I get this question’s more accusatory cousin, the very sweet, “You’re not from around here, are you?”

That’s when I start racking brain for what I just said. Did I mention chittlins or fatback? How about Dukes of Hazzard or Andy Griffith? 

I usually stammer about trying to find the right answers. I grew up in Farmington, a tiny unincorporated community in northern Davie County, a tiny county just west of Forsyth County and Winston-Salem. And while I wasn’t born in Western North Carolina, generations and generations of my mother’s family lived in and around Mitchell County (a couple of them were involved in the effort to succeed from the Union and create the State of Franklin), and my father’s family — unknown to him and to me — is from either Stokes or Surry counties. The jury is still out on that one.

But those aren’t the real answers, are they? Because pretty soon I realize the problem was that not only did I not mention those things, but that the real question here is, “Why don’t you sound like a Southerner?”

I don’t have the mouthy, slippery, slow, soft, boisterous, rich, jumbled version of the Southern accent that people hear on TV shows and big budget movies. They’re used to portray, in equal measure, ignorance, romance and exoticism. They can be an accent and a language unto itself. They are hard to mimic with success. (HBO’s True Blood? What is happening there, please?)

But what I want to say here is that we don’t all sound the same. I love this American English dialect map that shows the isolated dialects — like New Orleans — that rest like a lily in a pond among those who sound different. (Here’s a joke rooted in Southern Christianity: How do you know the Three Kings were firemen? They came from a-far.) And with Sarah Palin around, hearing someone who doesn’t sound like a NPR broadcaster gets attention.

Still, some of us don’t sound “like we’re from the South.” We pronounce our g’s sometimes. I feel silly even writing this because it seems so obvious, but since I get this question a lot — I mean, at least once a week it seems — maybe it isn’t obvious.

The idea is, of course, that there are things that make you Southern. Top of the list, besides the fact that you live in the region, is that you sound different. And that you can make a half-way decent pecan pie. To illustrate the pecan’s import: My mother made mini pecan tarts for my wedding that outshone the cake, that’s for sure. She would have been proud of me this week because I made my first one! I can’t fry chicken or make biscuits, but pie I can do! Just like I can pull out a y’all and you’ns with the best of them, when I try to make a point.