Margrethe Ahlschwede (margahls@utm.edu) from 192.239.150.210 at 10/25/01 08:45AM
comment
    If living in the south makes you a Southern family, then here is how it works. You teach at the University three miles from home. On the five-minute drive to and from the office you pass Pizza Hut, the sign that advertises Snappy Tomato’s special, Long John Silver's, Kentucky Fried, Burger King, Wal-Mart, and McDonald’s. You grow a garden of greens, okra, egg plant, and crowder peas and prepare them for dinner the entire time they are in season. You don’t order Damron’s Barbecue because you already know how to cook ribs on the grill but when their sandwiches are on special for 99 cents, you stop by for two. You e-mail your relatives, nearly all of them at least 700 miles from your town, and when they and old friends from the midwest come to visit you drive them to Reelfoot Lake to walk on the boardwalk and exclaim over the Cypress knees, to Kenton to see white squirrels, and to the Super Wal-Mart in Union City so they can hear how real Southerners talk.