Unfit to be a Yankee

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“You learn to forgive (the South) for its narrow mind and growing pains because it has a huge heart. You forgive the stifling summers because the spring is lush and pastel sprinkled, because winter is merciful and brief, because corn bread and sweet tea and fried chicken are every bit as vital to a Sunday as getting dressed up for church, and because any southerner worth their salt says please and thank you. It's soft air and summer vines, pine woods and fat homegrown tomatoes. It's pulling the fruit right off a peach tree and letting the juice run down your chin. It's a closeted and profound appreciation for our neighbors in Alabama who bear the brunt of the Bubba jokes. The South gets in your blood and nose and skin bone-deep. I am less a part of the South than it is part of me. It's a romantic notion, being overcome by geography. But we are all a little starry-eyed down here. We're Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara and Rosa Parks all at once.” ― Amanda Kyle Williams

Most Yankees will not say anything like the following with a straight face, primarily because if they did, they'd be labeled a traitor. 

I was born and bred to believe "the south" full of degenerates and derelict speakers, dumb southern boys who were far too kind for their own good, and snot-nosed women who were proud of archaic morals but also were gossiping floozies. While I am glad for my upbringing, for what I learned through it (at the very *most*), I am infected by the charm of the south, by the encouragement I gather from like-minded individuals who understand not the vitality of a certain region, but of the moral fabric and general disposition toward life that has almost ceased to be. I am reminded that there is, and always be, a remnant of the old ways, of those who stand up for what's right, and those who will do anything to achieve reformation for the sake of loosing what is in Heaven on earth for the sake of Christ Jesus and His glorious atoning work. I am proud of being even a little archaic. Not because of the word but because of God's Word. My liberal past nauseates me, and it's haunting enough to haunt my present and shape my future. Even still, I am proud to learn more history and obliged to associate myself with those who are willing to teach it to me: Especially that history which I so readily disregarded in my youth, thinking it a high and mighty thing to call myself a "Yankee."

How naive I was! I still am. I was only in the south briefly, and my experience there was tainted. I'm detached, yet the fantasy lives on. I know that life, generally-speaking in every ambiguous manner possible, is what you make of it under the authority of Almighty God. I'd be lying, however, if I did not feel a sort of kinship with those from the south. Not because of their history and mine intermingling. Nothing of that sort, because truthfully, it hasn't. I speak more of their ways. The air about them. The deep satisfaction of knowing that something was done right to the best of its abilities within the confines of Scripture. I dreamed of being whisked off my feet by a military man who had that southern charm about him. I don't know how God did it... but that's what I got: A romantic, old-world man who loves a simple and uncomplicated life, with wisdom beyond his years. He hates big cities and loves a good farm. His ideal life is as far away from modern civilization as possible, living off the land, teaching his kin about the fear of God and duty of man. He got stuck with a transplanted, contorted and confused Yankee against his will. It was God's will.

Still, so as not to make this all about myself, I would encourage those friends of mine who sat in classes over the years ingesting much "damn the toxic south" talk and receive an A on a paper only if southerners were insulted, to rethink their reasons for believing what they believe. The first question you might have to ask yourself is "Did they tell me the whole story?" They sure didn't.