Honey, baby, sweetie, darlin'

Being not only big of ass, but a belle in the southern tradition (the feisty Scarlett O'Hara tradition, not the mealy-mouthed blue-stockinged Melanie Wilkes tradition), I love my region and our culture despite its multiple failings.

Garrison Keillor writes of the south in Salon, of southern friendliness and the tendency toward addressing complete strangers with terms of endearment and affection, of the southern tendency to talk to strangers ~ at length. We are a friendly people, sweet and open and quick to smile and engage others. We like folks and it shows. He draws comparisons between my people and his frosty clan in Minnesota, between my folks and the yankees who are thicker than fleas on a dog's back just about everywhere (smooches, y'all, love you cupcakes, truly).

And then he writes this: "If we can't talk to strangers, if there is no public life in America, then it's no wonder politics is so out of whack. And yet in the South, which has produced the most regressive politicians this side of Sudan, who are proud of bad government and lousy wars, in which a disproportionate number of young Southern men die, you keep running into the friendliest people on earth. Explain that to me, sunshine. Sweeten up here and tell me why these good people keep electing those dreadful idiots. "

What a precious man. Love his writing, loved the essay. Check it out, darlings.