Download this January 2005 article as a

Here is “Round Eight ” 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) and Round Seven (November 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 Cheryl A. Richardson, Iron Station

• You wanted to watch Saturday morning cartoons, but you had to snap a giant bowl of green beans while you watched. 
• You’ve hung pie pans on strings in the cherry trees to keep the birds away.
• Your favorite toys were a stick shaped like a gun and a piece of bark you used for a walkie-talkie.
• You’ve had at least one dog or cat born with four legs but eventually had only three legs and you changed its name to Tripod.
• Two of your daily chores were to go to the garden and pick the veggies that were ripe and get the eggs from the chickens.
• You’ve had friends over to help you burn out a stump in the middle of winter.
• You’ve been injured while having an acorn fight, and it was OK to throw acorns because you wouldn’t break any windows in your closest neighbor’s house a half-mile away.
• It used to take 30 minutes to get to the grocery store in town, and when you were there you usually got a box of Animal Crackers to keep you quiet.
• You absolutely love this section of the magazine.
  

From Karowin Cassell, Glade Valley

• Your kindergartener thinks his teacher is a NASCAR fan because she knows the national anthem.

From Cynthia Lowe

• You wrench your car after you wash it.
• “Nene to ask” me means don’t ask me anything
• Your husband informs you that your skin is as smooth as a railroad iron.
• You know that all over hell and half of Georgia is a large area to cover.
• You know hickory tea is not a drink.
• Your children are meaner than a striped black snake.
• You refer to the heat as hotter than forty hells, or hotter than the hubs of hell, or you’re fairly sure the hinges on the gates of hell are pretty warm.
• When snow is on the ground it’s colder than a well-digger’s butt.
• You wash your clothes with warshin powder.

From Joyce Shields Moore, Tuckasegee

• Something that isn’t straight is annie godlin, so you need a plumb bob.
• Your mother made canteloupe pie.

From Jeff Furr, Monroe

• Duke Mayo is the only kind you eat.
• You know that a shindig or wingding is a party or reunion.
• You know that a fish camp is a seafood restaurant.
• You’re just piddlin when you’re working around the house.
• You tell your young’ns to quit cutting up when they are getting into mischief.
• You’re lollygaggin’ when you’re wasting time.

From Ernest Richards, Taylorsville

• You say “mash” this button, when you mean “push” this button.
• You know that white lightning really tasted like high-octane gasoline.
• You played Cow Pasture Ball, when you’d run uphill to first base, downhill to second base, uphill to third base, and downhill to home, and pine trees served as extra outfielders.
• Your Sweet 16 is your favorite shotgun for quail hunting (Browning Auto 16-gauge).
• As a child you heard old Confederate veterans singing “We’ll hang John Brown’s body to a sour apple tree” and you thought these to be the true words to this song until you went to high school and studied history.
• You knew the meaning of “Did you guy them about what they did?” (I remember reading a book written by a Mr. Benfield from Catawba County who served with Lee’s army and they captured some troops from the North and they decided the best thing to do was to separate the troops by state. They called out the names of the northern states, but there were some troops left when they finished. One of these said, “You have not called out Virginia yet.” Mr. Benfield wrote, “We guyied them unmerciful about that.”
• You knew that a mill team or town team was a semi-pro baseball team on the skill level of today’s Double A or Triple A teams.

From Connie McCluskey, Indian Trail

• You remember who Phi Ford is and what “alley oop” means to basketball.
• You sometimes find yourself in “the valley of humility between two mountains of conceit.”
• Your teen-age daughter says she is going muddin’ with her boyfriend and you know where she’s going.
• You can remember when you couldn’t get Krispy Kreme doughnuts anywhere else.

From Emily Flinchum, Pilot Mountain

• You read these lists and don’t know why they are funny because most of them just make sense.
• You shop at tractor supply for Christmas gifts.
• You’ve taken out a loan to buy a banjo.
• You went fishing on a date because moonlit ponds are romantic.

From Hazel Pridgen, Snow Hill

• You barbecue pig on chicken wire over a hole in the ground.
• You are in low cotton.
• The local newspaper carries the Society Page telling who went to see whom on Sunday afternoon.
• You clean your plate at dinner or you’ll get it for supper.
• You made ink out of poke berries.
• You made wine out of wild cherries.
• You learned to swim in a big ditch or local pond.
• Your swimming suit was a pair of bib overalls with the legs cut off at the knees.
• Some folks ate clay for indigestion or heartburn.
• You punched a hole in a homemade biscuit with your finger and filled it with molasses.
  

From Tracey Saunders-Sheffield, Thomasville

• You know what a counterpin is and you know to stay off of it.
• You know what a winder lite is.
• You have a wash house and a smoke house.
• You own a minner basket and dig your own worms.
• You’ve eaten a jackpie.

From Sylvia Hill, Walnut Cove

• You know the difference between getting a whoopin and whoopin it up.
• You know the difference between getting hollered at and going to the holler.

From Brent and Julie Tysinger, Asheboro

• You didn’t get whipped, but instead you got frailed.
• You know that Pat and Turner are not people, but your feet.
• You know that wallering is something you do in the hay or in bed.
• You’ve ever told a youngin’ to quit bellerin’.
• Unruly kids make your momma’s hand itch.
• You refer to Wal-mart as “The Wal-mart” or “Wal-mart’s.”
• You’ve ever skipped school to watch qualifying.
• You know that a cheer is something in which you sot down.
• You’ve ever been slap dab or right square in the middle of something.
• When you step outside on a really cold day, you say, “REEEE-ba-bee.”
• You think the fact that Jerry Stackhouse beat up Christian Laettner over a card game is a small measure of justice for that lucky shot back in 1992.
  From Hazel Autry, Stedman
• You know what a matt-er-ress is.
• Mama told you to sweep the yards.
• Grandma asked you to bring her med-er-cine.
• You know what a tater hill is.
• You know what a mustard poultice is used for.
• You know the difference between sugar ants and fire ants.
• You have eaten cornmeal gruel.
• You have ever been to fist city.
• You have ever been to pret-near.
• You had a grandmother who had a passel of children.

From Latoria Lassiter, Woodland

• You walk in public with your bedroom shoes on.
• When you leave church, the whole family goes to mother’s or grandmother’s house.
• You look out your window 24-7.
• Everybody in the county jail knows each other.

From Jan De Hoog, Belhaven

• A lady makes you wait at a green light while she opens her car door to spit out tobacco juice.
• A bear rambles across the road 100 feet in front of your vee-hickle .
• People stop traffic in both directions on Hwy. 264 to let three chickens cross.
• You’re poking along behind a tractor and finally pass it only to get stuck behind a load of porta potties.
• You give your neighbor green beans from your garden and he says he can’t wait to season them with smoked turkey tails.
• Your mother-in-law asks your daughter if she slept with the “african” she just knitted her.
• A drink is a Coke and soda is baking soda.
• Your son comes home with a smashed windshield and tells you he hit a buzzard.
• Your husband asks you to “ball” an egg.
• Neighbors live on roads with names like Possum Trot, Lizard Slip, Terrapin Track, Racoon Run, Turkey Trot, Mole Hill, Goggle Eye, Horse Pen Swamp, Hog Pen, and Seed Tick Neck.

top