You Know You're From North Carolina If...

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Here is “Round Ten” of your insights into how to know if someone is from North Carolina. You may also want to check out Round One (February 2004), Round Two (March 2004), Round Three (May 2004), Round Four (July 2004), Round Five (August 2004), Round Six (September 2004), Round Seven (November 2004), Round Eight (January 2005) and Round Nine (February 2005).

If you can think of anything to add to this list, send it to us:

E-mail: Carolina.country@ncemcs.com
Mail: P.O. Box 27306, Raleigh, NC 27611.
Phone: (919) 875-3062.

From Robert Erby, Rockingham

Your camouflage isn’t coordinated.
You name stray dogs and feed them.
Purple sandspurs or dandelions grow in your yard.
You give six packs of beer for presents.
You know what beggar lice are.
You know wrunt means ruined.
You use clothespins to close up chip bags.

From Robert E. Bynum Sr., Rocky Mount

You busted wood.
The stuff you start your fireplace fire with is
called liddard.
You eat mountain oysters, but you don’t like seafood.
You’ve left Macclesfield, went to Rocky Mount, then to St. Lewis and back to Macclesfield the same day, but did not go through the state of Missouri.
Everyone in your family has worn the same pair
of shoes.
You learned to barbecue under a tobacco barn shelter.
You know that a “single tree” contains no wood.
You know what Davenport and Edgecombe-Martin County EMC have in common. (The electric co-op purchased the electricity service owned by Mr. Davenport.)
You know how to cluck a mule.
A crappie, a croppie, a speckled perch, and a
chinquapin perch are the same fish to you.
You’ve eaten chicken feet and rice together.

From Rose Prevette, North Wilkesboro

You use these expressions:
“She’s crooked as a snake.”
“Would you put on a pawn of cornbread?”
“I just gave my room a lick and a promise.”
“Boys, he was balling the jack.”
“That horse is barnyard dead.”
“His feet look like sled runners.”

From Gertrude Wilson, Roxboro

You believe “Down East” is anywhere between I-95 and the Outer Banks.
Stringing beans means snapping them for cooking whether they have strings or not.
An apple-peeling is a get-together to prepare apples for drying.
A stomp-down is an old-fashioned square dance.
You don’t care if these memories give away
your age.

From Jackie James, Rutherfordton

You think grits and livermush should be international delicacies and don’t understand why some people don’t like them.
You read the newspaper’s local round-up to keep up with distant relatives.
You’ve come home to a bag of fresh produce on your front porch many times and never know which neighbor it’s from.
You say ranch when you mean wrench.
Your grandma believes old wives’ tales are the gospel.
Your mama yanked a knot in your behind for sassin’ her.

From Renee Tench, Stanley

You know someone who is as tight as Dick’s
hatband.
Your son has had his nose opened by a pretty girl.
You have checked your eyelids for leaks.
On the first cold Saturday morning of the season, you think it’s a good day for making sausage.
You have ever dug up moss to use as carpet for your playhouse.
One of your fondest memories is watching Fred Kirby save you from the bad guys on Tweetsie Railroad.
Your mother hosed the red dirt off of you before you could come into the house.
You have eaten tommy-toes.
You used pokeberries for blood when playing cowboys and Indians.
You “look” your beans before soaking them.

From Kelli Friday, Dallas

You carry a traveler hook in your purse that can do anything from opening your locked car door to defending you.
People ask you to do your Ernest T. Bass imitation at parties and you actually know all the words to “Old Aunt Mariah.”
You worked in the cotton mill with your daddy, your momma, a sister, a cousin, two uncles and your best friend all at the same time.
You’d give anything to have a bingo samich like the ones your Mawmaw used to make you.
Rock candy and whiskey help you fight the flu.
ACC basketball is a season all its own in your house.
You retire your car to the place behind the barn.

From Nancy Bodenheimer, Kernersville

When you watered the cows, you took them to the branch, and on the way back you rode on a cow’s back like a horse, then got a whooping that evening cause the cow only gave a pint of milk.
The only thing you got for Christmas was a home-made sling shot made from a forked stick and strips of black rubber from an old tire inner tube.
Your family looked for a small mound of dirt in the yard, knelt down and called “Doodle bug, doodle bug, come see me someday. I’ll give you some butter and bread.” Then dirt starts moving and out comes a brown bug.
You looked for a hole in the ground, broke off a broom straw and stuck it in the hole. The straw wiggled, and when you yanked it, out popped a worm.
You went outside school to pull a recess rope
at 1 p.m.
Someone tells you they’re gonna dot your eyes
and you know they don’t mean to complete a
picture of you.
You go honey-hunting by going to the branch, watching the bees come for water, following the direction they fly, hunting the tree, robbing the bees and taking their honey.
To make a swing you went to the woods to find a holler with a sapling on the bank that had “muskie dime” vines, then grabbed hold of the vine and took turns swinging across holler.
Your dad doesn’t have a job, but he tells people he works for Pat & Turner, meaning he pats the street and turns the corner.
Your Friday field trip at school was to walk a half mile to the country store to buy Mary Janes, licorice or an all-day sucker.
A neighbors’ get-together was called a choppin, when the men hoed corn or worked in the fields and the ladies cooked dinner for them.