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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)
• Round Forty-five (June 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 Heather Kivett, Randolph County

• Your annual family reunion is held in a church fellowship hall.
• Your Daddy drives you all the way to Murfreesboro just to show you the college he went to.
• You know that a cheese-dog doesn’t have a winnie on it.In your community a taxidermy shop is connected to an ice cream parlor.
• You think unsweetened tea should be outlawed.
• You throw your watermelon rind in the field for the cows to eat.
• You wear flip-flops all year long.
• Dessert is always pound cake.
• On summer nights you hear crickets, tree frogs and the local train.

From Virginia Kinley, Woodleaf

• Your oldest son and his wife live down yonder.
• Your youngest son and his family live up yonder.
• Your baby daughter and her family live over yonder.
• You go to the garden to stake maters.
• You go to the garden to dig taters.
• You hang your laundry on a line outside to dry.
• You wonder what “that truck” is doing in your neighborhood.

From Melanie Spell, Newton Grove

• Your 3-year-old-daughter gets corn on the cob when trick-or-treating.
• Your 3-year-old-daughter asks for field peas for her bedtime snack.
• Your 3-year-old-daughter loves to push her baby stroller through the potato rows in her Papa’s farm.

From Steven Preddy, Franklin County

• Your mom drives her golf cart to the local convenient store, then bangs on the door for the cashier to bring her milk and bread.
• You know what “redneck drive” means in a truck.
• You have more vehicles in your yard that don’t run than do run.
• You think the term “high-tech redneck” means having a tractor that has an enclosed cab and A/C that actually works.
• You think the term “high-tech cowgirl” means a girl riding a horse talking on a cell phone.
• You love the smell of peanuts being plowed up.
• You love a good thunderstorm, but you were taught to respect them by sitting down and being quiet while they are going on.

From Jim Hicswa, Denver

• Asking driving directions, they tell you to “Get back to that cee-ment road that you came on.”
• Your neighbors remind you where the dirt roads once went.
• Your neighbors are disappointed when you fix and rebuild a rotten falling down shed by exclaiming, “That’s what a shed is supposed to be.”
• You walk into Wal-Marts wearing a cowboy hat and shorts.
• You complain about the rapid growth of the area.
• You don’t sell land for fear that someone might build on it.
• Publishers of the local newspapers write about themselves and their family, and the church notices and church ads are huge.
• Supermarkets don’t know what olive loaf or pork roll is.

From Lauren and Julius Morris, Atlantic

• You can’t wait for spring mullets.
• You picked ditch berries to put in milk and sugar.
• Every Sunday after church you take a boat to the Outer Banks.
• As young’ns you raced to the landing to jump off the docks.
• During summer break you raked clams for Saturday night money.

From David Harrell, Eure

• Old combines and other ancient rusting farm equipment are scattered in the woods behind your house.
• When you were a little kid your dad used to tell you those old collapsed tobacco barns along the roadside with just the roof lying on the ground were “barns growing out of the ground,” and you believed him.
• Your 80-year-old grandpa “Pop” takes all the boys coon hunting deep down in the “river pocosin” to show off his new coon dog, and everyone is lost but Pop.
• Growing up you had a lame mutt hound that your dad called his “arithmetic dog,” because he “walked on three legs and was carrying one.”
• In your three-stall dairy barn where the cows line up outside to be milked, Bossy, Gerty and Buttercup are always first in line, and any other cow cutting in line means there’s going to be a big fight.

From Rick Roldan, formerly of Halifax County

• You ride in the shovel of a backhoe at a pig pickin’ as an amusement.
• You go four-wheelin’ in the horse pasture.
  From Ashley Braswell, Oakboro
• You live in between roads called Country Rd. and Booger Holler.
• You’ve used an old bathtub as a sled.
• You have a pet peacock named Purdy, because she is.
• You have two or three guns loaded and ready by the door for varmints that wander through the yard or for pesky salespeople who show up.
• You tell city folk your cooking crappie and they look at you weird.
• Your husband stacks petrified wood beside the seasoned wood for the wood stove.

From Elisa Ashworth, Sanford (formerly of Texas)

• It’s pronounced pee-can.
• You don’t know what doggone means, because in Texas it’s daggummit.
• Folk from North Carolina don’t care for your tater salad because it’s got too much mustard.
• Your neighbors don’t know what a pallet is, but Texas people know it’s a blanket spread our on the floor for the kids to play or sleep on.
• You used to be a Houston Oilers fan and now you’re a Carolina Panthers fan.
• Your Carolina born husband’s grandma slipped pig brains in his eggs and he liked it, and you thought that was just gross.

From Jennifer Cox, Franklinville

• Your commute to work includes traveling on a section of Dixie Drive.
• Ordering a hotdog at the Franklinville Restaurant is a normal Saturday routine.
• You play “Ghost in the Graveyard” with the other church kids while your parents are at choir practice.
• You watched “Dialing for Dollars” hoping that one day they would call you on the phone.

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