Warm summer nights, sipping on a glass of sweet iced tea. Fall evenings with nothing but football on TV. Winter mornings finding out school is out because there is one-half inch of snow on the ground, and spring days watching flowers grow and listening to the sound of the hummingbirds fly around.
Living in the south comes with many advantages that you wouldn't know about if you lived in any other part of the world.
1. Our accents and word phrases.
You never realize how country your accent is until you visit the northern states. Every time you encounter someone not from the south they will tell you they like your accent or ask you where you are from. Never fails. But as soon as you say "y'all, commode, aint, fixin', holler, or buggy" they all of a sudden look at you like you are speaking a different language.
2. The country cooking.
Nothing is better than homemade biscuits and gravy, cornbread and beans, fried chicken and mashed potatoes (also referred to as 'taters'), and any sort of casserole. Oh and we also can take pretty much take anything and fry it. Like deep fried Oreo's, fried pickles, fried squash, and fried okra. Literally anything can be fried in our recipe book.
3. Our southern hospitality
We will open the door for a complete stranger and even say "yes sir, yes ma'am, no sir, no ma'am" to literally anyone. It doesn't matter who it is or what age. Growing up we were taught to include yes ma'am, no ma'am, yes sir, no sir, after anything we were asked. So if someone from our church or even our grandparents asked us a question, we better include ma'am or sir because if not, we were in big trouble.
4. Tailgating and football
Fall days are dedicated to nothing but football. We will watch other teams play and cheer for the team that is in the SEC. That is just a giving. But as soon as our favorite football team is on, you better be ready because we get so involved that you would think it was a life or death situation. We literally yell at the TV when we aren't at the game like they can hear us through the television. Oh and let's not forget the Friday night lights. A lot of people will attend their hometown high school football games on Friday nights just because we are literally that obsessed with football. It seriously can take over our life in the fall.
5. Bonfires
You have more than likely sat around a bonfire with country music playing, eating a hot dog or s'more. As soon as you leave, you get irritated with how bad you need a shower because you smell like 'smoke'. And that's a smell you will never forget.
6. Evening porch sitting
At least once in your life you have sat on a front porch in a swing, rocking chair or lawn chair talking to your family or some friends. It's a nice feeling, until you get eaten up by mosquitoes.
7. Coke.
Coca-cola is considered coke and the word 'soda' doesn't even exist in our dictionary.
8. We get made fun of.
TV shows are the worst about it. They will make fun of the southerners by changing their accent, changing the looks of their clothes, or their lifestyle. We get called rednecks, hicks, hillbillies, etc. We get pretty ticked when it happens, but we mostly let it slide because they just don't know what they are missing.
9. Lighting bugs
Also known as 'fireflies'. Being outside on warm nights, you will see little yellow lights flying around and we love to catch them and gently put them in mason jars. After you fill that mason jar up, you have a pretty glowing jar full of little lighting bugs. But you always let them go, no matter how pretty they look.
10. The humidity
Okay, so this is one of the very few things that we actually hate about the south. You can literally feel like you are suffocating in the humidity. But we never really say, "this humidity is killing me", instead we say, "dang, it sure is muggy out here."
11. The mountains and sunsets
Driving down a straight road and seeing nothing but the beautiful mountains ahead of you with the sun setting down behind them. It's literally perfection.
12. Music
Country music is the best music. The people who can play the banjo, guitar, etc will literally sit around the house and play and the sound is one you'll fall in love with.
So yeah living in the south is great. I really don't think I would enjoy living anywhere else. But that's mainly because I sure would miss that homegrown cooking.
