Tears and Laughter: There is a difference between being Southern and being country

I’m not saying a person can’t be both Southern and country, but just living in the South doesn’t make you country. I think the fact that we routinely capitalize one and not the other says a lot about the divide between the two. It is not necessarily culture and manners, but more so the difference in how we define culture and what we consider proper manners. I still have friends who think it is wrong to sit on a bed once it is made.

I guess you could move to a house in the woods at the end of a backroad and still not be country if you were used to an urban lifestyle. Just like a country person can live in the city, but at their core still think back to picking dewberries every May that passes.

Country people tend to live in towns and communities and places too small to have a dot on the map. But there is more to it than location. It has to do with how you were raised and how your parents were raised, how your daddy made a living, and whether your grandmother baked a casserole and a pound cake every time a baby was born or a member of the church had surgery.

If your daddy did not work using his hands, or think it was important for you to know how to shoot a shotgun and drive a stick shift, then you likely lean more toward Southern than you do country. Just like if you have never taken a warm egg from a nest or bottle-fed an orphaned calf, then you probably aren’t too country.

Country people may be part of the reason the rest of the nation looks at Alabama a little slanted. It is not because of Huntsville or Mountain Brook or downtown Mobile. They may be exceptional examples of outstanding Southern cities, but let’s be honest, there are certain neighborhoods in Montgomery where country folks need not even apply.

The homeowner’s association is not going to let you dry your sheets and towels and size 24’s out on a clothesline in Wynlakes. They are not going to allow you to grow turnips or hang martin gourds or mud ride down by the lake. You can’t stake out plastic pink flamingos during summer or erect football banners in the fall. They expect tasteful and appropriate decorations for holidays and prefer white lights to colored. They expect members of the neighborhood go with a less is more approach.

Country people do not follow those rules. We are going to make do with what we have and use what we’ve got or what we found on our last trip to the thrift store. That goes for Christmas lights, what we wear, and how we decorate our homes.

Just look at what we will do with an old tire. We might hang it from a limb and use it as a swing, or plant a flower in it, or if there are several of them available we might bury them half way in the ground and make a fence around a small garden in the front yard. Usually they are painted white so they will stand out and look pretty.

We do the same when we cook, we use what is on hand or is in season. I think that’s how macaroni and tomatoes became popular. If your mama never cooked macaroni and tomatoes, fried salmon patties, or told you whose potato salad to avoid at dinner on the grounds, then you are probably not very country.

Now can both Southerners and country folks be rednecks? Yes. All you have to do to be a redneck is cuss creatively, like wrestling, and appreciate old trucks. We can all be rednecks. We just can’t all be country.

Amanda Walker is a contributor with AL.com, The Selma Times Journal, Thomasville Times, West Alabama Watchman, and Alabama Gazette. Contact her at Walkerworld77@msn.comor at https://www.facebook.com/AmandaWalker.Columnist.