A Southern Belle Primer by Marilyn Schwartz 04/02/08

As I may have said before, I have this thing:  I’m a WannaBe Southern Girl.

My parents are both Southern but I was raised in the North.  I read a lot of books about Southern women, how to be a Southern woman, etc and it’s endlessly fascinating to me.

I first came across this book about 10 years ago when my then-girlfriend got it on tape to listen to on a trip.  The narrator was Dixie Carter, whom I adore.  We laughed our butts off at it.  I came across it again recently (though not on audio, sadly) and had to get it.

It was still funny.  I can see people I know in it.  The odd thing for me is that if I’d been raised in the South, I’d have never been allowed to join the Junior League or pledge Kappa Kappa Gamma or any of that other stuff. My family was From the Other Side of the Tracks and Southerners are all about “who’re your people?”  Mine, were the … interesting ones in Walhalla, SC.  The ones who got in trouble a lot.  My aunt Lorraine got in fist fights, for Pete’s sake. That’s she’s *proud* of NOW –at 60.  My dad and my uncle Richard got mad at the local sheriff – I have no idea why – and when the sheriff left for lunch, they put THREE skunks in the office.  Yeah.  I would SO not have been in Junior League!

On the other hand, some things seem to be universal: I do have a deviled egg plate, I do think that tea should only ever be Sweet Tea (though I don’t drink it that frequently) and the worst thing that I can say about something is that it’s “tacky.”  Huh.