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Here is “Round 51” 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)
• Round Forty-four (May 2008)
• Round Forty-five (June 2008)
• Round Forty-six (July 2008)
• Round Forty-seven (September 2008)
• Round Forty-eight (October 2008)
• Round Forty-nine (November 2008)
• Round Fifty (December 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 Frances Farmer, Madison

• You have relatives that are buried in the front yard.
• You have a special graveyard for your favorite dogs, cats, horses and other animals, and you visit them regularly.
• You had an uncle who would whittle wooden toys for you to play with.
• Your grandmother brewed JFG coffee in a cast iron coffee pot on a wood stove.
• Your grandfather always kept a new pair of bib overalls for church and special occasions.
• Your grandmother acted as a mid-wife and delivered several of her own grandchildren.
• All of the mules that your grandfather owned were named “Roadie”.

From Juanita Moore, Cornelius

• You waited by railroad tracks for the train, so you could get candy that the engineers threw out the window.
• You took turns getting inside old tires to be pushed down the hills.
• Each Saturday you went to get a nickel surprise bag.
• Girls walked the plank across the canal and boys walked the pipes.

From Vivian Carpenter, Cherryville

• You went to the barn at midnight on New Year’s Eve to
  hear the cows pray.
• You caught crawdads and cut them open to get their pearls.
• You slid down gully banks and got so-o-o dirty.
• You cracked hickory nuts on the big rock near the spring box and picked out the goodies with a bobby pin.
• Your Mama made you hold the cow’s tail while she milked to keep the cow from swatting flies and hitting Mama in the face.
• You had an old “jump plank” which sat on a rock near the barn.
• You coasted down the hill in your wagon from the Hickory Wagon Company.
• You had “chaney berry” fights.
• You made dolls from molly pop flowers.
• You lived between Hog Hill and Cat Square.
• You went “Christmas boogering.”
• At Christmas your family went to North Wilkesboro to get your apples out of cold storage and buy peppermint stick candy and chocolates.
• Your Mom put a sassafras branch (cut exactly to your height) in the darkest corner of the closet to keep you from having pneumonia again, and it worked!

From Gaylia Forbes, Hudson

• You were flogged by roosters and chased by angry cows who disliked children.
• Thanksgiving weekend was hog-butchering time when you cured hams using a family recipe of spices, and women were busy canning and freezing pork.
• You shook up the big jar of milk in the refrigerator to mix in the cream before pouring a glass.
• Your father plowed and wagon-trained with mules and considered them superior and more beautiful than horses.
• Churches had singings and revivals when members visited each other’s churches and then scheduled baptisin’ at a designated spot in the creek.
• On rainy days, you settled atop the stacks of baled hay under the barn’s tin roof with a book and a purring barn cat for company.
• Summer evenings neighbors visited on front porches while the children played and caught lightning bugs in the jar as dusk fell, and all was right with the world.
• Each spring, your mother took you spring greens picking through the fields and pastures, and she knew all the edible wild tender plants.
• You know that “leather britches” are dried green beans strung up to dry.

From Nancy and Bobby, Stanly County

• You always look forward to hog killing because for dinner you had pinto beans and baked back bones and ribs, fried tenderloin and cathead biscuits.
• Your mama would tell you to follow that old hen and see where she laid her eggs.
• In summer, all the kids had to work in the garden in the evening, then sit on the front porch later and have a RC and a moon pie.
• You cooked beets in the old wash pot.
• For supper you had scalded lettuce, cornbread and milk.
• You put rags soaked in kerosene around your ankles when you when blackberry picking, to keep the red jaggers off.
• On the mornings and evenings when you went to milk the old cow, the cats would line up and you would squirt milk in their mouths.

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