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Here is “Round Two” of your insights into how to know if someone is from North Carolina. You may also want to check out Round One (February 2004) and Round Three (May 2004).

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 Dick Holmes:

• You know where Barney Fife stays when he goes to Raleigh. (The YMCA.)
• You say, “it don’t” instead of “it doesn’t.”
• At least one of your female relatives has dipped snuff.
• You eat collards and black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day.
• You sometimes eat country ham, grits and eggs for supper.

From Elizabeth & Joe Burkel:

• Your family car has a crew cab.
• Your luxury car is a 4 X 4.
• You measure your heating bill by the cord.
• You know what a logger load is.
• Your part-time job is selling firewood.

From Dan Rhyne:

• You have to travel to a neighboring state to buy lottery tickets.

From Tom Townsend:

• You know that Vicks VapoRub was invented in Selma in 1905 by Lunsford Richardson.

From the J.E. Moore family:

• Ya cain’t hold a revival during cannin’ season.
• Drinkin’ from a jar ain’t just for high-dollar restrints.
• Every real man owns a truck, or at least dreams of it.
• You set through a green light, and the car behind you pulls up beside you and asks if you need a push.

From Bud Royster:

• You have found yourself at a graveyard at sunrise on Easter morning.
• Your girlfriend’s parents insist that you go to the Love Feast.
• You have a bird dog for grouse and another bird dog for quail.
• You know what a turkey shoot is.
• You can tease your wife about her father being a deputy sheriff in Mount Airy, in the 1960s. (It’s true for me, anyway.)

From Ben Strickland:

• Your pastor calls off Sunday night services for Panthers’ Super Bowl football game.
• Your renters pay you in quarters.

From Faye Allen:

• Racoons will test your crop of melons and let you know when they are ripe.
• “Onced” and “twiced” are words.
• You actually grow and eat okra.
• “Fixinto” is one word.
• “Backwards and forwards” mean “I know every- thing about you.”
• “Jeet?” is actually a phrase meaning “Did you eat?”
• You’ve had to switch from “heat” to “A/C” in the same day.
• You own only five spices: salt, pepper, Texas Pete, mayonnaise and catsup.
• A carbonated soft drink isn’t a soda, cola or pop. It’s a coke, regardless of brand or flavor. Example: “What kinda coke you want?”

From Doris Blackwell:

• Barbecue is a noun, not a verb.
• It was not the Civil War, but The War of Northern Aggression.
• Pop is a sound, not a drink; and soda is for baking.

From David Taylor:

• Your basic greetings are followed by, “So how’s your collards lookin’ this year?”
• Your past tense of the verb “to see” is “seen,” as in “I seen you at the auction yesterday.”

From Lorrie Stanger:

• Your car has a “boot” instead of a trunk.

From Patsy Davis:

• You know that “barbeque” means cooking pork on an open pit and “cook out” means hamburgers and hotdogs.

From Jacob Bradshaw:

• You have a general idea where ”over yonder” is.
• You know what a pig pickin’ is.
• You believe that Sun Drop is the greatest soft drink in existence.

Some from eastern North Carolina:

• You say “tater” instead of “potato.”
• You say “skeeter” instead of “mosquito.”
• You say “hise” instead of “house.”
• Your tractor is under the carport instead of your car.
• You brag on your new John Deere.
• All your clothes are Dixie Outfitters.
• You know ECU can beat State or Carolina in football anytime, anywhere.
• You know what “mellow your head” means.
• You know what “momic it up” means.
• You know how much a “mess of fish” is.

Anonymous:

• You remember when Easter Monday was a holiday.
• Your school was delayed because tobacco was late.
• A 7-course meal to you means a pack of Nabs and a Pepsi.

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