Headlines
Heaton: 10 Things You Miss When You Move Away from the Deep South
Life in Mississippi has been compared to many things: a quilt, a gumbo, fabric. I think of it as a cobbler.
One cannot find it anywhere else in the world. To the unacquainted it looks messy. The right mix of ingredients cannot be found anywhere else on Earth, and life in Mississippi is delicious.
1. Food: Shrimp and cheese grits. Lemon ice box pie, BBQ, Turnip greens and black eyed peas, with hot pepper sauce, Catfish and hush puppies, Crayfish, Cobbler, Yeast rolls, Fried okra, Cole slaw, Sweet tea, Mississippi mud pie, Biscuits and gravy, Chicken fried steak. Dammit. I should have listed food last – I’m starving.
2. Mississippi accents and colloquialisms. Bless your heart. Don’t be ugly to your “sister, brother cousin,” Carry me to “school, church, Piggly Wiggly”. Act like you’re somebody. Hear tell. Full of beans. Come sit a spell, be there directly, ice box, pea-cans, catawampus, yes ma’am and sir. And, drum roll please — y’all.
3. College football Saturdays. Explaining the myriad delights of a football Saturday in the South to anyone who has not enjoyed them may be impossible – like trying to describe the ocean to a blind man. If I ever could enlighten Yankees to the charms of a football Saturday in the south it would be my Pulitzer Prize.
4. Magnolia grandiflora. This grand old tree — the scented flowers of which the Indians claimed would lull a soul into perpetual sleep — grows no where else but the Deep South.
5. Natural chivalry, manners, hospitality and respect. Opening doors and standing when ladies enter a room, Helping others at all times, thank you notes, entertaining often and informally, engaging elderly folk. Southern etiquette is bone-deep instinct.
6. History. Inescapable and heavy as a wet blanket: Old country roads, barns and gins, Indian mounds, Ole Man River, ruined mansions, town squares with benches, shade trees, and ancient, heaving sidewalks.
7. Neighbors. In the South you know about their families, you ask about their families. You listen. You take their hand. Then get invited over for tea, then cocktails, then dinner. Next thing you know it’s midnight. Just like that.
8. Architecture. Grand old mansions, sharecropper shacks, country churches, courthouses, wrought iron fences. Columns, balconies, winding staircases, plantation shutters, tin roofs and red clay bricks.
9. Gardeners. Ladies tending garden in white dresses, aprons, gloves, banded wide-rimmed straw hats, and wicker baskets with lots of clippings.
10. The air. To paraphrase Tom Robbins: “Mississippi in spring is an obscene phone call from nature. Honeysuckle, Gardenia, Magnolia, Azalea. Moist, sultry and secretive”.
As with all things, there is a price to pay. If you are far from home and confess your love for Mississippi, your companions will not understand — and this will be the loneliest moment in your life.
Tim Heaton is a HottyToddy.com contributor and can be reached at tim.h.heaton@gmail.com.
| Sat, Aug 31 |  | vs Furman | W, 76-0 |
| Sat, Sep 7 |  | vs Middle Tennessee | W, 52-3 |
| Sat, Sep 14 |  | @ Wake Forest | W, 40-6 |
| Sat, Sep 21 |  | vs Georgia Southern | W, 52-13 |
| Sat, Sep 28 |  | vs Kentucky | L, 20-17 |
| Sat, Oct 5 |  | @ South Carolina | W, 27-3 |
| Sat, Oct 12 |  | vs LSU | L, 29-26 (2 OT) |
| Sat, Oct 26 |  | vs Oklahoma | W, 26-14 |
| Sat, Nov 2 |  | @ Arkansas | W, 63-35 |
| Sat, Nov 16 |  | vs Georgia | W, 28-10 |
| Sat, Nov 23 |  | @ Florida | 11:00 AM ABC or ESPN |
| Sat, Nov 30 |  | vs Mississippi State | 2:30 PM ESPN or ABC |
Jim Hays
November 8, 2014 at 7:58 am
I remember at a court trial in my hometown in central Miss. when asked how a creek ran to separate 2 parcels of land in dispute, the old gentleman said “well, it just goes kinda catawampus thru that field. When ask to “clarify” his statement he replied “I mean it just goes adigoglin right down the middle. The jury understood!
Tim Heaton
November 9, 2014 at 7:25 am
I am saving the word “adigoglin” for some great purpose. Thank you!
Rod Clark
November 9, 2014 at 9:34 am
As a native Mississippian, I would have enjoyed this article so much more if the picture accompanying architecture had been of an ante-bellum home in Mississippi (there are about a gazillion!), instead of one in Louisiana!!!
JD Turner
November 9, 2014 at 8:36 pm
great article & spot on…well except for one thing….it’s puh-cahns, not pea-cans….lol having lived from the gulf coast to the heart of the Delta to the hills of North MS, i’ve never heard true Mississippians call it that….and i have a very, very old south MS family haha….anyway, great article! Go Mississippi! and of course…HOTTY TODDY!
Tim Heaton
November 10, 2014 at 4:50 am
Thanks JD. You are right I wasn’t sure how to spell it phonetically, but I know when I hear it… Or egads,, hear pronounced some other way!
dujac
November 10, 2014 at 7:46 am
the air in pearl river county often stinks because of the paper mill in bogalusa
JM Beard
November 10, 2014 at 7:47 am
14 years removed and still have bouts of homesickness. The only cure has been trips every fall to take in #3 which helps facilitate the other 9. Nice job trying to explain what can’t really be explained. I’ve tried but after getting “the look” I just bless their heart and move on.
FHeller
November 11, 2014 at 9:55 am
Sorry, but unless you move in dramatically different circles from the ones I move in, thank you notes seem, for the most part, to have become a thing of the past here, sad though it is.
I have to disagree that”Pea-cans” is a pronunciation common in most southern states. I can’t speak for them all, but I find that peculiar mostly to Georgia. More common–in Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee,and, if I remember correctly, Virginia–is “puhcahns” with the accent on the last syllable.
Tim Heaton
November 11, 2014 at 11:32 am
@FHeller. .my mistake on pecan. As JD said, “it’s puh-cahns, not pea-cans”. Holding my ground on “thank you notes”
Rich
November 13, 2014 at 2:04 pm
Crayfish???? Not once outside of a biology class have I ever heard a southerner call them that. “Mud bugs, craw-dads, craWfish”, never crayfish. That and Pea-cans, makes me shudder to hear the Georgia pronunciation for “PAH-CONS”. Good article however.
Pat McDermott Scavo
November 13, 2014 at 2:35 pm
‘nuf said
I moved back !
Charles wright
November 13, 2014 at 6:19 pm
That’s right because a pea-can is something you keep under the bed so you don’t have to go out at night, lol
Issac Smith
November 13, 2014 at 7:16 pm
Yes I miss all of that. Wished I could come back more.
Josef
November 13, 2014 at 8:50 pm
Sixth generation Mississippian all lines…
A pee-can goes under the bed and is emptied in the morning. And it’s buh-CAAAHNS LOL
Josef
November 13, 2014 at 8:51 pm
ISAAC
Beat me to it! LOL
Josef
November 13, 2014 at 8:53 pm
OOOPS,that should’ve been to Charles…
MJ
November 13, 2014 at 9:31 pm
People smiling for reasons that are discernible only to fellow Southerners. Some friends from Europe call Mississippi, “the land of the smiling people”. In their country, they value being serious about their professions. They can’t quite understand how people can smile so often and still be dedicated professionals.
Samantha McTague
November 13, 2014 at 11:21 pm
Moved to CA after a divorce 17 years ago, man I sure miss it.
Tim Heaton
November 14, 2014 at 5:12 am
Can someone give me a “Bless is heart” on the puh-cahns controversy? 🙂
Tim Heaton
November 14, 2014 at 5:13 am
ugh – “Bless HIS heart” sorry. as ya’ll can see I am in need
Just the Bear
November 14, 2014 at 5:24 pm
While I miss much after leaving Mississippi for California, let me set the record straight on a few things. I know my neighbors and we act just like neighbors in Mississippi.
In addition to being able to make “Southern” dishes myself, I know of at least 15 places in a 25 mile radius where I can get greens and grits. If I had stayed in Mississippi, I would have gone to medical school and become an Endocrinologist to treat all the Type II diabetes these food choices provide.
Ladies tending gardens in white dresses? Really? You see this all the time? I visit the South often and that sad stereotype has been gone since the 50’s. Real women work at real jobs and should be offended by your romantic, but ugly memory of opulence with that one. Ask a couple of your African-American friends about their memories of their mommas gardening in pressed white dresses.
While you are talking to them, ask them also about the architecture portion of your dreamy soliloquy. I am quite sure that the Mansions and Slave Quarters mean something entirely different to them.
Colloquialisms? Are you 80 years-old or something. As indicated, I get to the South a lot and the last time I heard somebody say, “Sit a spell” it was Andy talking to Barney on a Mayberry rerun.
I live and work in Orange County, CA and I can’t say that people are more or less cordial here. I will be happy to direct you to all of the rude people that I know within the confines of the State of Mississippi. Be forewarned it will be a copious list.
History? See my comment on architecture. There are multiple histories in Mississippi. There is the whitewashed (pun intended) history of elegance and chivalry and the blacker (again, intended) history of oppression and privilege. Out here the histories are Brown and White, elsewhere they are Red and White, etc. My point is you cannot wallow in a history that is one dimensional.
As a 63 year-old, white double alum of the University of Mississippi, I miss my friends, but I can’t say that I miss the humidity, poverty, lack of opportunity, horrible educational system, or mosquitoes and cockroaches.
HandyAndy
November 14, 2014 at 7:12 pm
Bless your heart, I’m so glad you were able to escape to CA, and to such a wealthy area at that.
Andy McWilliams
November 15, 2014 at 5:48 am
As a native Mississippian, removed to the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, I find it hard to find foods like good BBQ, Gulf shrimp, pecans, and sweet tea. Every time I to back to Clarksdale, I stock up on Abe ‘s BBQ sauce. And blues? The most blues I find around here are a bunch of young white boys trying to play Stevie Ray Vaughan. The deer hunting is much harder here in the Ozarks too. When you shoot one, you have to be sure you can get it out. It’s hard to drag one up a mountain. I keep a Mississippi hunting license, so I can still hunt around the bean fields in the Delta. And duck hunting, as we know it, doesn’t exist.
Tim Heaton
November 15, 2014 at 8:07 am
Actually there is a lady here in Morristown NJ who gardens in whites and wicker. ….She’s from Virginia.
Eveileb
November 15, 2014 at 8:51 am
I’m in total agreement with Just the Bear. As an African American born and raised in Mississippi, I find this Gone with the Wind-esque characterization of Mississippi insensitive and dishonest. The fact that you failed to mention the blues, gospel, and rock and roll seems like an intentional omission when Mississippi is currently marketing itself as the “Birthplace of American Music”.
There are also other colleges in the state besides Ole Miss, Southern Miss, and MS State. While I went to college out of state in the Northeast, the Capital City Classic is as much a part of the state’s heritage as tailgating in The Grove.
Be honest about the past and presence because racism is still alive in Mississippi. Google has tons of data and search trends show that, per capita, the largest number of racist terms were searched in the states of Mississippi, Alabama, and West Virginia… Good opportunity to promote the Institute for Racial Reconciliation at Ole Miss.
little teapot
November 15, 2014 at 12:16 pm
To just the bear – are you always such a joyful person?
I was born in the North but made Southern by the grace of God.
little teapot
November 15, 2014 at 12:22 pm
Hello folks. The Civil war was 200 years ago. The past cannot be changed. Bigotry can be a two way street. Skin color and area are not the issue -attitude is.
coastgirl
November 15, 2014 at 11:05 pm
Just the bear… glad you gone and bless your heart ..you still feel need to put down your homeland. I do say sit a spell and I am not racist. Along the coast of Mississippi we smile and have a song in our heart all the time. We are there for each other and don’t feel the need to put others down for there comments. Unless you are too much of a bigot…then we have to stand up. I love this article. i smiled all the way through it. I smell Magnolias all the time and thankful I was born in Mississippi and still call it home. I moved away for a dozen of years. But, she welcomed me right back in. It’s where I fit and my heart is happy. We aren’t living in the past. We have progressed others out of the South are just jealous they don’t have the “home’ feeling we have. Get some puh cans, grab a rocker and sit a spell. Sip some sweet tea and calm down. Stop Hating. Stop being mean to the author. Oh and how is all that smog out in California. We don’t pollute our air like that down here.
Tim Heaton
November 16, 2014 at 2:45 pm
One of my dearest friends here in New Jersey has told me many deeply personal and heart-wrenching stores of what it’s like to be black in America. As a white person, I can never know what it is like to be black – and the need to be always aware of the difference my skin color makes to others.
I can tell you it hurts me very much that this man has to tailor his interactions with others based on skin color. People here in the northeast (or Santa Monica and Chicago too) may claim to be enlightened – they’re not. Mississippi has made plenty of mistakes, but after living all over this country I can tell you that bigotry is coast to coast.
Jake Brown
November 16, 2014 at 6:20 pm
I remember being about 5 to 7 years old visiting grandparents on their farm. Chickens under the house. Uncle’s
, cousins and family all around. Learned to milk a cow but not used to drinking it. But they would go out of the way to get me pasteurized milk. Straight from cow made me sick
This was in Kosciusko, Miss.
Terri, MD; PhD
November 25, 2014 at 6:09 pm
To Bear and Eve,
Wonder why all the bigotry, etc. Look at what’s going on in Ferguson, MO. Bless all their hearts and yours too. Enough said.
Tim Heaton
December 13, 2014 at 6:59 am
I forgot pimento cheese!
ronny..
February 16, 2015 at 1:33 pm
I,m a Mississippi man and love to turkey hunt and head to the river for a lot of cat fishing.. I don,t hate anyone I hope no body hates me.. grew up in Smith county ….
Anonymous
April 18, 2016 at 8:40 am
As with all hits, this piece has a sequel. In it I attempt to answer 10 more things only a Southerner would know.
Such as:
>Can one BBQ a hotdog?
>How are Turtles properly served?
>Dunk or drizzle? Who’s getting in.
copy/ paste this.
https://hottytoddy.com/2016/04/14/10-more-things-youll-miss-about-the-deep-south/
kerry
June 23, 2016 at 10:54 am
A few weeks before my daughter had her baby in Oxford, MS last fall, her doctor told her he the baby was “all catawampus.” He meant breeched. Fortunately, the situation righted itself jsut before the blessed event.
Tim Heaton
August 30, 2016 at 6:48 pm
Thank you that Kerry! God bless!