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

Various links

Here is “Round 23” 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 Elizabeth Love, Winston-Salem

From Frances Kelly, Hope Mills

You know all the names of your neighbor’s dogs but aren’t sure of the neighbor’s name.
You can still understand the sales clerk’s southern drawl, despite her pierced tongue.
Your neighbors know when you need help but otherwise go about their own business.
You share extra rootings from your plants.
To keep cool on a summer’s night you hung a wet towel with a clothespin in front of a window fan.
You can open your windows after Christmas.

From Jaron Kennedy, Pink Hill

From Mike Davis, Fayetteville

You know who Homer Briarhopper is.
Every Saturday night you watched the Wilburn Brothers, Porter Wagnor and Arthur Smith, right after Championship Wrestling. Then, if you felt like your culture might be slipping, you’d watch Lawrence Welk.
You know you don’t need an allotment to grow rabbit tobacco.
You’ve singed your eyebrows smoking rabbit tobacco because you rolled it in newspaper.
You know a whoppie-jawed door won’t close right.
You know what sliding down a plowline out of the hay loft will do to your hands.
You consider hides and knuckles to be gourmet snack food.

From Gerald Miller, Oakland, Md. (formerly of Denton, N.C.)

You spent half your childhood looking for arrowheads in a red dirt field.
You explored the woods dressed like your favorite character in the outdoor drama “Horn in the West.”
You spent your summer vacation at the Southeast Old Threshers Reunion.
You had the privilege of going to Washington, D.C., on the Rural Electric Youth Tour.
You still refer to North Carolina as home even though you don’t live there anymore.

From Lisa Causby, Nebo

For entertainment, you and your cousins piled into an old junked car and pretended that you were going somewhere.
You sucked on haystraws pretending to be the “high society ladies” in the movies who smoked their long fancy cigarettes.
You closed your windows in the summer because of skunk spray.
You know to be quiet the day after your dad was up all night coon hunting.
You were related to most of your classmates and church members.
Your parents thought that a good cleaning out would cure what ails you.
After Sunday dinner at your Grandma’s, you and your cousins would sit on the floor to watch Fred Kirby while the adults cleaned up and gossiped.

From Vivian Nunnery, Elizabethtown

The iceman came twice a week.
You couldn’t wait for hens to lay, so you could go to the store and buy candy.
Your mama put a tub of water in the sun so you could have a warm bath before bedtime.
You shelled peanuts so that daddy could have seed for next year.

From Lee Bradshaw, Clinton

When your mother told you to beat your feet off, you cleaned your shoes; and when she told you to wash your face off, you cleaned your face.
You ate potted meat, Vienna sausage and crackers for a snack while fishing at the pond.
At the end of the pepper row you could get a Pepsi and a pack of peanuts.
When Granny said “a cloud was comin’ up,” you expected a thunderstorm.

From Cindy Newell, Peachland

Tractors slow you down on major highways.
You know what a bird dog is.
You can “bore a hole” or “shake a tater” to make a baby laugh.
Your children prefer corn and beans over hot dogs.
Your son would rather browse the local tractor supply store than a toy store, and all he wants for Christmas is a real moo-cow.