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Download this September
2005 article as a
Here is “Round Fifteen” of your
insights into how to know if someone is from North Carolina. You
may also want to check out
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 Paula Brigman
- At bedtime after the Lord’s prayer, your great grandma would say “Now get under the kilver, hon.”
- You had to go to the bathroom real bad about 30 minutes after early morning cucumber-picking began and never returned, praying no one would notice.
- You had to shake the bedsheet about three times before you could get to sleep because every time another cousin crawled in the bed they brought sand with them.
- During outdoor play you pretended the smokehouse was the place the boogie man kept the bodies of his victims.
- On warm days at Grandma’s you took your bath in the foot tub outside.
- You put too many clothes in the ringer of the washing machine and jammed it up.
- You chased your sister with the hog shocker.
From Mary Kearns, Raeford
- In January you would go in the field and cut down straw and make a broom to sweep the floor.
- You would cut hedge bushes to sweep your yard.
- You would get chalk from a hole and paint your fireplace.
- You put fire in a bucket of rags to keep the mosquitoes away.
From Travis Black, Franklinville
- You have an ACC, rebel flag and “I am a farmer” stickers on your truck.
- All your shoes are boots except for one pair of church shoes.
- You have traveled out of state at least once to try the lottery.
- Your literature is Carolina Country and tractor magazines.
- You wear a John Deere hat but you do not own a John Deere tractor.
- You have nightmares about your truck being a low-rider.
From Ruth Hopkins, Oakboro
- You hung Birdseye diapers on the clothesline.
- You love the smell of freshly cut wild onions in the spring.
- You bought 1-cent cookies from a big Lance jar.
- You love the smell of chicken feed and gasoline.
- You burned your feet while running barefoot to the barn in 100- degree heat on Sunday afternoon to get the cow’s head out of the “bobwire” fence.
- You walked behind your daddy’s side harrow uncovering corn sprouts.
- You know Big Lick is where the deer used to lick a large rock.
- You know Oakboro is where they used to tie burros to the oak trees.
- You know a preacher’s cuss word is “dadblame.”
From Paul Stinson, Matthews
- You have carved your initials in the top of a sycamore tree down by the creek.
- You set a dozen rabbit boxes.
- You know the difference between a citron and a watermelon.
- You have busted mussels looking for pearls.
- You know why corn cobs come in red or white.
From Roy White, Granite Falls
- The adults got the choice pieces of chicken at Sunday dinner.
- Dad stored potatoes in a cave and watermelons in the wheat bin.
- Dad took corn and wheat to the “roller mill” for bread.
- You could buy three BB Bat suckers for a penny.
- You learned to walk on “Tommy Walkers” stilts.
- Mama gave you “peach tree tea” when you disobeyed.
- The boys played “camel walking” in the front yard.
- You know what a “Flying Jenny” is.
- You used an Indian tommyhawk for a door stop.
- You used a fishing pole with a hook to catch the rooster for Sunday dinner.
- You threshed black-eye peas on a sheet with a hoe handle.
From Patsy Hayes, Walnut Cove
- You had to tie out the cow in the morning, take her for water at lunch time and move her to a different place, then in the evening go bring her in to be milked.
- You took your gallon jars or tin buckets of milk down to the spring and placed them in the plank box Dad built so the water would run through the holes in the box to cool the milk.
- The man who laid out your road was known as “Snake” Mulligan because the road had so many curves in it.
- You ate roastin’ ears baked in the shucks on the stone flue in the tobacco barn.
- You ran from a blue racer snake then doubled back on him to get away.
- You treated a king snake like a farm animal because he helped control rodents and other snakes.
- Your country grandma had a wood-burning cookstove and your town grandma had an oil-burning cookstove.
- Daddy sat in the rocking chair and snored while he “wasn’t asleep, just resting his eyes.”
- Cough medicine was made at home with a pint of Rock ’n’ Rye and a pound of horehound candy mixed in a quart jar. (Dose =1 teaspoon.)
From Carroll & Peggy Herman, Zirconia
- You thought she was plum pretty.
From Louise McMiarmid, Raeford
- You fly a June bug by tying a string around one of his legs.
- You have eaten clay from the side of a hill.
- You have eaten hickory roots from seedlings.
- You chewed ripe wheat heads ’til it turned to chewing gum.
- You rode a mule bare-backed to pull a tobacco drag.
- You made your own sausage and stuffed it into casings.
- You bought beef from the back of a car or truck.
- You played marbles ’til dark in the summertime.
- You chewed tar from the tar pit.
- You helped your granddad stack peanuts out in the field.
- You cooled your watermelon in the creek tied inside a toe-sack.
- You weighed yourself on a cotton scale.
- You helped fold your hometown newspaper.
- You learned to dive from an old Cyprus tree into a creek.
- You killed bumblebees with tobacco sticks.
- You spent all afternoon pulling taffy at your grandma’s place.
- You had a Brunswick stew meal when you finished up tobacco season.
- You helped can fresh soup for the next year’s school lunchroom.
- You chewed a twig from a blackgum tree to make a snuff dipping.
- You used lard can lids for dinner plates.
- You pulled fodder from drying cornstalks.
- You rolled in a car tire to see how long you could hold on.
- You knew Fort Bragg as “Camp Bragg.”
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