 |
||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
   |
Just wanted to say a quick word of thanks to all of the wonderful people who came out to Author! Author! Shreveport and especially to those who hung around for the late reading.
I had a wonderful time and will be blogging more later, including uploading some pictures and what not from the event. As it stands, I have a deadline on The Patriot Joe Morton.
Thanks again for the support!
So I was driving down the road the other day with my friend Russ, when we began discussing the pending collapse of civilization.
Relax, we’re not crazy. It was in relationship to a certain local congregation that is hell-bent on preparing for the end of the Western World and, as such, has more than its fair share of individuals equipped to live in a world without electricity, running water or modern medicine. But I came to a realization: the South, and many off those who live here, will be just fine.
Within weeks, the 85% of the male population that own a bass boat more valuable than their home will have found a niche industry providing fish for food. All the while, as the rest of us barter away what little possessions we have, the bass fishermen will sit back, a Cuban cigar dangling from their toothless mouths, and wag a gold-ringed finger at we who do not fish and say “See. I tol’ you so. That’ll be two gold Rolexes and a gallon of gasoline.”
It’s not that I’m ignorant. I’m as capable of growing things in the dirt as the next guy. (Well, maybe not.) But my idea of a Utopian paradise isn’t the Olduvai Gorge after living in space for three years. I’m much more of a “Give me a pool or a deck or a lake and wi-fi.” Even better, give me a Starbucks.
But the conversation with Russ left me wondering. How would I really fair when 2012 and the Mayan gods come back to kill us all? Will I be able to hack carving a meager yet happy existence Ego-wise from the top of some well-protected and completely self-contained little microsettlement? Or will I be more like the savage school kids in Lord of the Flies, forced to turn to a life of conch-controled pseudo-society brawls for what little bit in the way of nuts and berries some dead fat kid left hidden in his napsack?
Until that fateful day, I guess I’ll just have to be left to wonder…where the hell will I get my java fix?
I live in the South.
That doesn’t make me a redneck, a hick or a hillbilly. I am an American. I live in a (grantedly small) city of approximately 60,000. I attend theatre and symphonies and the ballet. I also know how to eat a steak, barbeque ribs, field dress a deer and run a bushhog. I don’t wear “shit kickers” or any other types of derrogatorially named footwear. I have a pair of Tony Lama boots, a pair of Chucks, a pair of Ferragamo. What’s your point?
I live in Louisiana.
That does not make me a coon ass, a Cajun or a Creole. My last name is French. I am not French. I am Scots-English…almost completely. I am not in any way French, Indian, Canadian, or Spanish. I haven’t a drop of French blood in either direction, going back more than 5 generations. I know how to eat crawfish, cook a mean jambalaya (and it’s pronounced JUM-buh-LIE-uh, not JAM-Ball-Aye-Ah), and can darken a rue — dry or wet, take your pick. But that’s not the limit of my culinary abilities. I can roast a quail, boil a chicken, slow-cook a pot roast — New England or Midwestern — and I can smoke a ham.
I say all of this to clear up a few misconceptions about the South and the southern way of life, because several times in the past few weeks (including one infuriating moment earlier today when a customer service representative placed me on hold, missed the button, and referred to me as a “dumbass red neck — I did Shakespeare for Christ’s sake!) I’ve come face to face with the ignorance of Southern culture. I mean by that the ignorance of those outside of the South of what goes on in the South.
So over the next few weeks, I’ll blog about Southern life. Who better to elucidate some of the finer points of Southern living than a novelist, an observer of the South, right?
So I invite you to relax, pull up a porch swing, sip on some iced tea and take a minute to learn about the South. I promise you, it’ll be interesting.
