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Here is “Round 31” 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)

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 Jean Clark, Southmont and Florida

• You strung persimmon blossoms to wear as necklaces and bracelets until your grandmother informed you that the persimmon tree sprang up where the old outhouse once stood.
• You picked June bugs from blackberry vines, tied strings to their legs, watched them fly in circles around your head, and then returned them safely to the blackberry vines.
• When you lost weight, someone told you, “You sure have fallen off.”

From Diana Davis, Surry County

• You find a bluetail lizard tap dancing in your bathroom sink and you swat it and the tail breaks off and starts dancing with the lizard.
• Grandma flushes bluetail lizards down the john.
• Grandpa shoots the turtles in his pond, out his living room window with a .22 rifle.

From Lorena Bumgarner, Cherryville

• You woke up to the jingle, “Nothing Could Be Finer Than to Be in Carolina in the Morning.”
• You say “up ‘ere and down ‘ere.”

From Paul Senter, Elkin

• You know that cooter snappers and crawdads are better for catching cats in the Yadkin River in early spring and that hellgrammites are good anytime.
• You know that a thistle pig and a groundhog is the same animal.
• Your father needed only to touch his belt buckle to get you young’ns to be quiet.
• Cucumber boats always floated better in the still water of the creek.

From Karen Wolfe

• You know that the best way to grow something is just to throw the seeds out into the wind.
• Your favorite pets have been green anoles you have caught in your backyard.

From Tommy Tyler, Autryville

• You know that Brunswick stew and real barbecue can only be cooked on oak or hickory fires.
• All small cracker snacks are called “nabs” regardless of manufacturer.
• Grape soda is a purple coke.
• The real drink for nabbing is a brownie.

From Faye Butler, Raeford

• You brought water up out of a ditch and strained it through a toe-sack to remove the crawdads before using the water in the tobacco transplanter.
• You got the razor strap on the wall if you didn’t behave.
  
• You climbed the china tree or rolled a small hoop with a stick.
• You helped prepare apples, cabbage, etc. to make chow-chow.

From Fay Williams, Weeksville

• Your grandpa gave you your first job at age 7 or 8 pickin’ buckets of taters in the field, and you got a ticket for each bucket and cashed them in for money on Saturday morning.
• Your grandpa’s “old maid” cousin Minnie came to visit, made you a dipper brush from a tree twig, then parched some flour and put it in her empty snuff can so you could pretend to be dippin’ snuff.
• Your grandpa’s outhouse had one hole smaller than the other for the children to use.

From Les Brown, McDowell County

• You made a whistle by cutting a split in a wheat straw joint.
• You caught horny heads with red worms and a cane pole.
• You caught your momma’s chicken while fishing with red worms and a cane pole.
• You searched for gizzard rocks in the chicken lot.
• You dove from the top girder of an iron span bridge.
• The whole family shucked corn by kerosene lantern, and the boys hoped to find a red ear that would prophesy getting a pretty girl.
• You tried to tie a tight knot in “love knot” vine (dodder) to see if she loves you.
• You “hoped” (helped) somebody do something.
• Your high school played basketball against other schools in a barn or shrubbery packing house.
• You used an old carburetor as a toy bulldozer.

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