Download this May 2004 article as a

Here is “Round Three” 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 Two (March 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 Gail Austin, Four Oaks:

• You hear people say “barn backer” instead of “tobacco.”
• You eat molasses and butter together with fatback.
• You eat coon and sweet potatoes together.
  

From Ruth Leggett, Gates:

• You know what looping tobacco is.
• Your first driving test was on a tractor.
• Homework means working in the fields.
• Getting the switch means you did something wrong.
• You know what a cane pole is for.

From F.N. Stanton, Maxton, who is writing a book called “What My Pappy Told Me”:

• You ever had cow pies between your toes.
• You have a beehive under a Granny Smith apple tree.
• You know a stick broom is a store bought broom with a wooden handle.
• You like an onion sandwich with mustard.
• You had a crush on your first cousin but she liked your brother.
• You daughter wants to be a professional clog dancer when she grows up.
• You are still hiding your Confederate money from the I.R.S.
• Your Christmas tree is aluminum and you live in a pine thicket.
• You know pony bread is not made from a dead colt.
• You know someone who had R.C. Cola and moon pies at a tailgate party.

From Ronnie and Connie Dudley: 

• You have sucked the juice from a honeysuckle blossom.
• You have chewed on a sour weed.
• You have waded in a ditch behind your house and found crayfish and minnows.
• You have played under the house in the hot summer.
• You know what a toadhouse is, and you know how to find doodlebugs.
• You have spent the night on a fishing pier.
• You have eaten chocolate cake made from a 50-pound lard stand lid.

From Mary-Louise Swindell McGee, Swindell Fork:

• You use a “race” of soap instead of a bar.
• You use sweet soap for hands, instead of Octagon soap.
• You “hearn” something instead of “heard” it.
• You go to schoolhouse, churchhouse and kitchenhouse.

From Thelma Vann, Eure:

• Possums sleep in the middle of the road with their feet in the air.
• You do not have to wear a watch, because it doesn’t matter what time it is. You work until it is done or it is too dark to see.
• Fried catfish is the other white meat.
• The four seasons are almost summer, summer, still summer and Christmas.

From Janine Atkinson, Windsor, who says, “These are true for northeastern North Carolina anyway.”

• It’s OK to insult anybody, as long as you follow it up with, “Bless his/her heart,” as in “He ain’t too bright, bless his heart.”
• You season your vegetables with bacon grease or pork meat.
• You know what chitlins are, and that you eat them with vinegar, and what cracklins are and that you eat them with baked sweet potatoes.
• You don’t think it’s weird to eat fried fish or pork chops for breakfast.
• When considering marriage, Chevy vs. Ford ranks right up there with religious differences.

From Cabe Speary, a member of Albemarle EMC:

• You know what “pinhooker” means (in the tobacco and timber sense).
• You get together with some of your buddies to cook a pig, and one of them says “Hey, J.T., yew brang the box springs, or was I s’possed to?” Your primary exclamation is “Good God, I do reckon!”
• Your favorite NASCAR driver is mentioned in your obituary.
• You know the plural of “you” is not “ya’ll.” It’s “you’ins.” The plural of “you’ins” is “all’yuns.”
• Given the choice of listening to Andy Griffith’s “And They Called It Football” story again, or a Presidential debate, well, you know which one you would pick.
• Your friends from Tyrrell County have a com- pletely different accent than your friends from Bertie County, even though they grew up less than an hour apart.
• You wonder why everyone is leaving the Hurricane’s hockey game at the end of the 3rd quarter.

top