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Download this December
2005 article as a
Here is “Round 18 ” 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 Kelli Tschillier Friday, Dallas
- When visiting relatives in
northern states you’re
asked where you got your accent and you tell them you brought
it with you in a Y’all Haul.
- You know that canned green
beans don’t come in an
aluminum can at MaMaw’s.
- You cross the state line to buy
your shoes at The Jesus Store.
- You have pictures of your favorite
livestock, both here and gone, in your family albums.
- Your husband’s
tractor is parked in the yard beside your car.
- Your husband has
two tractors, two old Army jeeps and a ‘68 Pontiac in the
barn as “projects.”
- You had to take two cases of Sun-Drop
with you to Myrtle Beach because once you got past Pageland you
couldn’t find
it anywhere.
- Your city relatives are shocked that you actually
want that old blacksnake in your barn.
- Your relatives include
MaMaw, PaPaw, MeeMaw, PeePaw, Great Maw and Poppy.
- Your PaPaw
called you “Snickelfritz”, ”Pookanellie” or “Pickletoes,” and
you now address your kids likewise.
- Your MaMaw had the right to
whoop you like you were her own.
From Janice Jenkins, Wallace
- You take Sundrop on vacation with
you because you can’t
get it anywhere else.
- You went trick-or-treating riding on the
tailgate of a station wagon.
From Avery Whitley, Stanly County
- You didn’t wear shoes unless
it was time to go to church or back to school.
- You know exactly
what a mud pie tastes like.
- The local store owner adds up the prices
on the back of a paper bag.
- You sit on the front porch of your grandma’s
house in the dark, singing gospel hymns until bedtime.
From Hannah
Smith, Surry-Yadkin EMC
- You call a dog a sooner.
- You eat hoecake
bread and pinto beans when it’s
snowing outside.
- You love everybody no matter what color they are.
- There are no
more parking spots so you drive your John Deere tractor to school
and park it on the football field.
- Your favorite song
is “She
Thinks My Tractor’s
Sexy” by Kenny Chesney.
- Your little brother has every John
Deere toy tractor that Tractor Supply has ever carried.
From Angela
Lawson, Greensboro
- The days of the week are Sundee, Mondee, Tuesdee,
Wensdee, Thursdee, Fridee, and Saturdee.
- You know what catty-wonkered
means.
- North Carolina town names ending in “ville” are
pronounced “vuhl.”
- You used a kiddie pool for snow
sledding.
From Vickie Cruthis, Trinity
- You know what the leak of a house
is. (You put buckets under the leak of the house to catch rainwater
runoff from the roof for watering household flowers and plants.)
- You
know what “hither and yon” means. (Mama
would piece quilts, and she was very careful that the corners
of her quilt squares would meet. She would look at other people’s
work and critique it by saying something like, “Look at
that. Her squares are going all hither and yon.”)
From Sammy
Bailey, Wingate
- Your mother would fuss if you stood with the frigidairy
open.
- You and your father made poppers for your bicycle spokes
out of paper and clothespins.
- When plowing the garden, you never
dig up the volunteer tomatoes.
From Dawn Howell, Ronda
- You tie your dogs to a stump or the pillar
of the house.
- You don’t need a deer stand in
the woods because they come right into your own yard.
- You’d rather go on a
wagon train than to the family reunion.
- Your first date was at
a tractor pull.
- You got married in a barn.
From Delana Shinault
- You have a row of empty milk jugs in your
garden in the spring.
- You made mud pies in pop bottle lids.
- You used pokeberries to
write your name on the side of the barn, then said you didn’t.
- You
and your cousins sat on the gas tank at the barn and played horsey
all afternoon.
From Betty Duncan, Winston-Salem
- You picked half-runner green beans ’til
the snakes ran you out of the patch.
- You fried fat back from momma
hog and made milk gravy.
- When you told your momma your bones hurt
she said you had growing pains.
From Gary W. McLean, Creedmoor
- Anytime you didn’t feel 100
percent, your parents would give you a dose or two of Fletcher’s
Castoria or Epsom’s
Salt, claiming you needed to be “cleaned out.”
- During
the one-mile walk to the country store, you could pick up enough
returnable Coke and Pepsi bottles to buy yourself a huge bag
of penny candy.
- The Meadow Gold milkman would bring you
plain milk and a couple quarts of chocolate milk, and then
on Saturday mornings, maybe you’d get ice cream.
- You remember lining
up on the Baptist church steps before proceeding behind the United
States flag and the Christian flag into the church during Vacation
Bible School.
- The only alarm clock that you needed to get up,
get dressed and be at the tobacco fields was Mr. Williams driving
his Farmall tractor by your house.
- There wasn’t any air
conditioning and you had a whole-house window fan.
- You cleaned
the exterior of your house every year by manually washing it
with Clorox bleach, water, a scrub brush and rubber gloves.
- Your
brother got a bad case of poison oak and your mother boiled polk
root in a tea-like mixture then rubbed him down with it while
you’re thinking it would set him afire.
From Marie Wall
Harris, Yadkinville
- You know that the little leg of a chicken
is really part of the wing.
- You say “ought” when something
hurts.
- You say “aught” instead of
zero.
- You take a stick
from a black gum tree, chew the end to resemble a brush and dip
snuff with it.
- As a child you made fake snuff using cocoa and
sugar.
- You know that you “gravel” under
potato vines for the spuds.
- You say “I’m give out” when
you have worked hard and need to rest.
- You say that you will have
something done in a skip and a hop.
From Earl Auton
- There are big retrievers in the bed of every other
pick-up truck.
- You give directions using KFC and Waffle House
as landmarks.
- You still see Dale Earnhardt tributes on cars.
- You can’t
imagine life without Bojangles’ sweet
tea
- You have a sunburn from May to October
- You can tell the difference
between cotton fields and tobacco fields while driving.
- One of
your neighbors has a Confederate flag hanging on his front porch.
- You’ve been “properly raised,” and Yankees
love it when they hear you say “ma’am” and “sir.”
- You
know the difference between a redneck and a hick.
- You own at
least one surf shop or seafood restaurant t-shirt.
- You prefer
Chick-fil-a to KFC.
- You know pastry is a chicken stew, not a dessert
item.
- In summer you have home-grown tomatoes with every meal.
- When
it rains and the creek rises, everyone gathers to see how high
it rose.
- You have at least one relative who raises collards.
- You faithfully
drink Pepsi or Mountain Dew every day of your life.
From Jana Parker, Welcome
- To get to your best friend’s house
you go along the creek, down a beanfield, across a bridge, down
a cornfield, on a woods trail, between two cornfields, and past
the pig lot.
- You and your best friend camped out in an old dump
truck, got eaten up by skeeters, but had a cat to protect you.
- You
climbed up on top of the combine to watch the sunset.
- You kept
a baby pig in the house so he wouldn’t
get too cold and had to stay up all night listening to him cry.
- The
biggest thrill of your day was playing in the mud after a rain
storm or rolling down the hill in your front yard.
- You go to the
high school football game for social reasons, but you find out
the final score to tell your parents so they think you watched
the game.
- You had a weenie roast in the middle of a cow pasture,
played in the creek, then stood next to the fire to watch the
steam rise off your pants.
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