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Here is “Round 45” 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)

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 Lanson Cox, Asheboro

• You made a game of sneaking up to a branch (creek) and trying to stick a straw into an open mussel before it could close its shell.
• You made sourwood whistles and “trumpets” when the sap rose in the spring and had your hands and mouth stained black for days from the sap oozing from the bark.
• Your Fourth of July celebrations centered around friends getting together to seine the river, then having a fish fry with the catch.
• Your elderly neighbor didn’t sit on her porch; she sat on her piazza (pronounced “pie-eezer”).
• Seeing barnyard chickens fighting over maggots in a cow patty didn’t diminish your appetite for fried chicken on Sunday.
• You found a moonshine still while squirrel hunting, but didn’t dare come close to it because “the law might be a-watchin’ it.”

From Annie Jackson, Harnett County

• The goat got in the front room and ate the pretty plastic window curtains.
• Your mama took a little of nothing and made a meal out of it.
• You stumped your toe, it would bleed, and your mama tied a white rag around it.

From Cindy Wood, Bills Creek

• You had to break a bushel of green beans before your Aunt Martha would let you go swimming.
• It was the kids’ job to wash the dirt off of the beets in a big ol’ tin tub.
• You played hide-and-seek in the squash patch.
• On a sunny afternoon you spent more time in the barn than in front of the TV.

From Ruth D. Smith, Waynesville

• Mama sent you and your sister to get the cows off the hill and you ran up there barefoot. The grass was so cold that you would run where the cows had lain all night because it was warmer.
• Mama made dried apples and hung them up in a flour sack, so we girls would make a hole in the sack and get out a handful to eat every day.
• Your grandfather said, “Go get your hoes. It’s time to hoe the corn.” You would hoe all day and hope for rain, so you could go to the house.
• Mama made you and your sister wear long cotton stockings to school in the winter. But you were afraid they would make fun of you at school, so you would take the stockings off and hide them in the barn until after school.

From Deborah Davis, Lillington 

• You took a bath in the river on Saturday when the well was dry in the summer.
• You have eaten a sugar pie.
• Your grandma knew which tree made the best twigs to dip snuff with.
• Your mama made school-girl pickles in the churn.
• You went bird blinding for yellow hammers in tobacco barns at night.

From Nina C. Threatt-Joins, Marshville

• Your car couldn’t get up a hill with all the children in it, so you walked up the hill, got in the car and continued on to church.
• Your father would boil pine needles to soothe your heels and toes that got frostbite from your two-mile walk to school.
• Nine people would ride in a T-Model car to church.
  
• Your mom would move a board from the kitchen floor to get eggs for breakfast.
• You shimmied up a pine tree to see who was coming to your house.
• You set a box trap to catch rabbits for supper.
• At one end of the cornfield, your brother would stop the mule, run to the house and make an energy booster with a half glass of milk and half glass of molasses.

From Patty Swing, Lexington

• You had one storybook, memorized the nursery rhymes in it at age 3, and everybody thought you could read.
• Your aunt made polk stalk pickles, and they were the greatest thing in the world.
• Your mom cut cardboard in the shape of your shoes to cover the holes until May when you could start going barefoot.
• You went to the wheat field on May 1 to wash your face in the dew so you would be beautiful.
• The only time you had contact with your schoolmates in the summer was sending them a penny postcard and walking a mile to mail it.
• You walked miles in your community and knocked on every door to sell Colverine Salve and Rosebud Salve.

From Janet Singleton, Turkey

• Your grandpa would say, “Who beg won’t get none, who don’t beg don’t want none.”
• Your grandma sold candy that she got from the Watkins man, and you couldn’t wait to get to her house with your nickel so you could buy a Baby Ruth, Goodbar or those Jellies.

From Grace Conrad, Lewisville

• You know the difference between a slop bucket and a slop jar.
• Mom would say, “What are you snausing for?”
• They would tell you, “I’ll jerk a knot in your tail for not minding me.”
• You wore asafetida on a string around your neck too keep away disease.

From Lil Davis, Canton

• You and your girlfriends floated down the stream to see who could come out with the most bloodsuckers on her.
• On your way home from grade school you stepped on a soda can with each shoe so it clung to the bottom of your shoes, then clip-clopped all the way home, ruining many shoes.
• You got off of the school bus and yelled, “Got ya last.” If they caught you, they yelled “Got ya back.”

From Mickie Henry, Morganton

• You grew up watching “Hee Haw” on Saturday nights and “Gospel Jubilee” on Sunday mornings.
• You say “nanners” for bananas, “okry” for okra, and large biscuits are “catheads.”
• You enjoy hearing the popping sound when sealing jars of green beans.

From Steven Preddy, Franklin County

• You helped your grandma gather eggs out of junked cars in the yard.
• You would “tour the countryside” on Sunday afternoon for something to do and end up at the local drive-in for a snack bag of Fritos and a drink in a Sweetheart cup that had the hearts on it.
  
• You had a race while shelling beans to see who could shell the most in a set amount of time.
• You have taken pictures at a hog killing.

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