30 January 2008

El Sur

It is true. I love the South. This isn't a quaint regionalism. It's star-crossed love, baby. I love the Spanish moss, the macaroni and cheese, the Piggly Wigglies, and the Jiffy cornbread. The steaming asphalt parking lots, the chain gangs, and the county courthouses. The grapevines, the poets, the novelists, and the corrupt politicians. The iron in the clay, which makes it bleed red, and the granite in the ground millions of years old. I love the hemlocks, the sourwoods, and the beeches. I love the escaped slaves, the freed slaves, and Jimmy Carter's wide, empty grin. I love the Allman Brothers, Otis Redding, Buddy Holly, and Robert Johnson. Even when it sucks, it's all very good, and a perfectly balanced counterpoint to all the love I have for the West, Southwest, Midwest, and Northeast. What bugs me is when places all start to look alike. That's how I know it's the End Times. When everything starts turning into overcooked oatmeal, or when life becomes an infocommercial for an ideal that no longer even exists...it's the End Times all right. 2012 is when the Mayans said it would all end. That's only four years away. What do you love?

1 comment:

Todd said...

Miss Thelma reiterates your concerns. She said that there's not much time left in the world because it's full of "mean" people.