Download this May 2008 article as a

Here is “Round 44” 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)
• Round Nine (February 2005)
• Round Ten (March 2005)
• Round Eleven (April 2005)
• Round Twelve (May 2005)
• Round Thirteen (June 2005)
• Round Fourteen (August 2005)
• Round Fifteen (September 2005)
• Round Sixteen (October 2005)
• Round Seventeen (November 2005)
• Round Eighteen (December 2005)
• Round Nineteen (January 2006)
• Round Twenty (February 2006)
• Round Twenty-one (March 2006)
• Round Twenty-two (April 2006)
• Round Twenty-three (May 2006)
• Round Twenty-four (June 2006)
• Round Twenty-five (July 2006)
• Round Twenty-six (August 2006)
• Round Twenty-seven (September 2006)
• Round Twenty-eight (October 2006)
• Round Twenty-nine (November 2006)
• Round Thirty (December 2006)
• Round Thirty-one (January 2007)
• Round Thirty-two (March 2007)
• Round Thirty-three (June 2007)
• Round Thirty-four (July 2007)
• Round Thirty-five (August 2007)
• Round Thirty-six (September 2007)
• Round Thirty-seven (October 2007)
• Round Thirty-eight (November 2007)
• Round Thirty-nine (December 2007)
• Round Forty (January 2008)
• Round Forty-one (February 2008)
• Round Forty-two (March 2008)
• Round Forty-three (April 2008)

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 Jill Couch Lambert, Lexington

• Your local roadside is dotted with hand-painted signs for deer corn and apples, pygmy goats, yard sale Saturday, 4 good used tires and John 3:16.
• You figure you’re dining at the right place when all the parking spaces have lots of oil spots like where you park at home.
• You exterminate the winter’s stacked wood in the shed with the old pickup’s morning exhaust.
• Another person can tell what you’ve been up to when you tell them who you went to see: Dave (automotive), Larry (gas & grocery), Roy (muffler), Gill (grill), Tom (seafood).
• The old badminton set has played many family reunions but now graduated to “bat swatting” and “wood boring bee bashing.”

From Krystal Sykes and Carolyn Batts, Burgaw

• Your granddaddy hangs a lawnmower from a tree so he can work on it.
• You and your cousins take one of your grandaddy’s old tarps and use it as a clip and slide.
• You wear cowboy boots with your shorts during the summer.

From Nancy Cross, Goldsboro

• You know that eastern North Carolina barbecue has nothin’ to do with red sauce and is eaten on a bun with coleslaw.
• You know what a pig-pickin’ cake is.
• School is cancelled because of a threat of snow.

From Laura Tiller, Denton

• You use two cinder blocks and an oven rack for a grill to cook out.
• To cook meat, you dig a hole, put hot coals in it, put meat wrapped in tinfoil in it and bury it for a couple hours.
• You know what “going across the river” means.
• You walk or ride bicycles in the streets all night without your parents worrying.
• You use a five-gallon bucket with rocks in it for a Christmas tree stand.
• Your Christmas tree is a cedar that you found while walking around outside.
• Everybody calls your dad “Pappaw,” even if he’s not.
• The first thing you look at in the newspaper is the arrests, because usually there’s a family member in there. Then you look at the obituaries.

From Jennifer Cox, Franklinville

• Stepping outside your house on a Saturday morning in early fall you can hear the wail of a chain saw echoing through the woods.
• Within a 5-mile radius of your home there are at least 200 Rouths, Pughs, Johnsons and Cox’s.
• You pick cockle-burrs off your dog and cat.
• Eating oyster stew once a year is a tradition at your Uncle Tom’s and Aunt Janet’s.
• You wear plastic bread bags over your shoes when you play in the snow.
• Your aunt’s name is “Ain’t Pearl.”

From Rick Roldan, formerly of Halifax County

• You know that “you n’ yours” means family as in, “How’s you n’ yours?”
• Every local band you know has “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Freebird” in their arsenal.
• A karaoke night is not complete until someone sings “Friends in Low Places.”
• You know that spotlightin’ a deer is cheatin’.
• You measure your daughter’s suitor by his best point count, and if he drives a Chevy or a Ford.
• You know that if it ain’t more than four points it ain’t really a good one.

From Cindy Linton, Blounts Creek

• You know how many folks a mess o’ collards or a mess o’ fish will feed.
• You know how much “right” is, as in “right much,” “right far,” “right nice” or “right expensive.”
• You love the way the river just smells so good some days.
• You live on a road called Possum Track.
• The word “do” sometimes stands for “if so.” For example, “Are you too hot? Do, I’ll turn the fan on for you.”
• You know “a toddy for your body” is a little nip your Daddy and Grandaddy took under the shelter behind the grading room about mid-afternoon on Sunday.
• Your idea of relaxation is sitting on the pier drowning a worm, watching the mullets jump and listening to your young’ns laugh and play in the water.

top