Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore.

[bear60]

So, Kurt and I drove to North Carolina to attend my Moms Memorial service.  At 11AM on Dec 1, we committed her ashes to the ground, at the University Methodist Church.  My Dads ashes were put there in 1999. Nearby to the plot where ashes are committed is a Meditation Garden. On a wall are the brass plaques of people who have had their ashes put in the ground on the church property.  No burial, no niche, just ashes to ashes.  At 2PM there was a Memorial Service for her at Carol Woods, the retirement community where she had lived since 1989.  She was just a few days short of 98 when she died. The main speaker at her memorial was a very good friend of hers who had suffered a severe inner ear problem a few years ago and is now using a worker dog ( guide dog).  It was so great to see her getting around with her dog Journey.
My brothers family was all there except daughter in law #1 who, it seems, has taken a powder and left my nephew.  All too gory details.
About 30 people showed up for the service and reception afterwards. We had put out some memorabilia of my Mom and pictures and there was a lot of laughter and discussion.  One picture was of my Mom, back on the farm, at 19 months,  perched on a horse.  She loved horses and owned a horse when I was growing up at home. ( In fact we had horses and ponies and chickens and goats and at one time two pigs  ( named Porgy and Bess), as well as dogs and cats.)
The Holiday Inn Kurt and I stayed at was a stones throw away from a very typical diner type restaurant.  Since this is my only chance to have fried chicken, turnip greens, black eyed peas and fried okra with biscuits, Kurt and I had dinner there Friday evening after driving in from Philadelphia.  Let me tell you, culture shock set in immediately....we were asked "Smoking or non smoking?"...after having successfully quit over a year ago and living in one of the "smoke free" cities,  this was my first suprise.  The group seated next to us consisted of a Mom and Dad and teenage daughter.  Dad weighed at least 300 pounds ( as did most of the people eating there).  At one point he loudly exclaimed to his daughter that she should just "learn it and test on it" and went on to explain that "like that THEORY where the world is trillions of years old and we are descendants of apes, its just a theory and you just have to  learn it and test on it and forget it."
Kind of ruined my dining experience, I'll tell you.  Oh yea, good old boys, you gotta love em? Not.
edited for spelling and memory error

[404error]

I've never been to the south.  It's always struck me as kind of a magical place, where people abuse themselves with self neglect and unhealthy lifestyles.  A place where thought hasn't progressed since the 1950's.  I guess going there would be as close to time travelling as it gets in this part of the world.  I'd like to visit so I could see what people were like before I was born, also so I could eat some slow cooked BBQ, cornbread, baked beans and slaw.  Maybe I could even take in some of the redneck arts, like Nascar or Swamp Buggy Racing.  There's some good 'ol boys down there I'll tell you hwhat...

[bear60]

There is a lot about the south that is wonderful. Having grown up there, I am aware of the good and the bad side.
What I found particularly shocking was the severe drought that the region is caught in.  The lake we drove across on I 95...Lake Gaston I believe, was actually dried up to the point of just puddles.

[404error]

I gots me some kin from Paducah Kentucky and they gots some kin folk from down yonder, two counties over I reckon.  They came to Canada once to visit.  I went to the airport with my cousins to meet them.  No coveralls, no hayseed out the mouth, they spoke intelligently and articulately.  I was so disappointed.

[Iggy]

I moved three months ago from NYC only to find more native New Yorkers in Charlotte than I ever ran into in New York.

Great bbq here though.

[bear60]

It is amazing Iggy.  When I graduated college in 1967 all the gay guys I knew (and me)....we all fled to places where there were larger gay communities.  Well, New York and San Francisco ring a bell.  And as they say the rest is history...because Gay Liberation, then Gay Civil Rights resulted from all those guys getting together and plotting to take over the world. 

[GSOgymrat]

The Holiday Inn Kurt and I stayed at was a stones throw away from a very typical diner type restaurant.  Since this is my only chance to have fried chicken, turnip greens, black eyed peas and fried okra with biscuits, Kurt and I had dinner there Friday evening after driving in from Philadelphia.  Let me tell you, culture shock set in immediately....we were asked "Smoking or non smoking?"...after having successfully quit over a year ago and living in one of the "smoke free" cities,  this was my first suprise.  The group seated next to us consisted of a Mom and Dad and teenage daughter.  Dad weighed at least 300 pounds ( as did most of the people eating there).  At one point he loudly exclaimed to his daughter that she should just "learn it and test on it" and went on to explain that "like that THEORY where the world is trillions of years old and we are descendants of apes, its just a theory and you just have to  learn it and test on it and forget it."

Welcome to my world.

[thunter34]

A place where thought hasn't progressed

That's downright uncanny.  Most of your posts inspired this southern boy to have the same take on that head of yours.

 

[404error]

Some of my views are quite progessive, others are admittedly not.

[Miss Philicia]

Oh, the South is such a mixed bag these days.  The cities are quite cosmopolitan as so many Yankees have moved down there, plus many of the locals have upped their game.  Personally I really adore the places outside the cities where they cook that pig in a hole in the ground.  Considering I'm a very annoying, pretentious northerner I love being around rednecks.

Used to love traipsing over to Atlantic Beach on the Crystal Shore in NC for some bungy jumping with the Camp LeJeune boys.  Goodness... some hot men in wife beaters fo' sure.  Then you can jump over to Morehead City for some gentrified restaurants.

And I *LIVE* for pulled pork and hush puppies.  LIVE!

[BT65]

Hi Bear,

I am so sorry about your mum.  It sounds like her memorial service was good.

As for the South; I lived in Alabama three (yes, three) times.  And moved back up North every time.  I do love the food there, though.  The last time I lived there (Tuscaloosa, AL) I worked at their big hospital (DCH).  They had really good corn something-or-other, like fritters?  OMG, they were delicious.  But the general attitude of the native Southerners I just couldn't take (NO OFFENSE INTENDED TO ANYONE).  I remember I went to an AA meeting there and someone asked me where I was from.  When I told him he drawled out "another damn yankee."  At the time, I was a fast moving person.  Now that I've slowed down a lot, it may be more appealing.  However, I moved there because my brother was there and he now lives up here as well, so it doesn't look like I'll be trecking down there anytime soon.

[Andy Velez]

Hi Bear,

It sounds like matters went as well as possible for your Mom's service. Or at least that you and Kurt guys are making it through.

And you're definitely not starving. Which is good. Even though you had to endure listening to some indigestible stuff.

My Southern experiences have been very limited. I don't count uncounted numbers of demos in DC or visits to Miami. Which is only technically the South, but is really the other sort of Las Vegas down that way to me. (Provincial New Yorker speaking here).

Glad you guys are safely back home.

Cheers,

[Life]

Joel... Lots of memories...  I enjoyed reading but have had little to no experience with the southern ways of the world...  I did see fried green tomatoes which at least gives me a taste of what you experienced.....

Best wishes and great memories forever...

Love,

Eric

[Jody]

Bear...Glad the memorial service went as well as can be expected, those are not easy with lots of family around.  Family is often what we have, not what we choose.  Some are great people who can be and indeed are our friends, others we would not want around if they weren't related by birth or marriage.

404...Your generalizations are just that...We have a lot of southern people here on this website, many of whom I have had the pleasure of meeting and I have found them to be kindly, intelligent people.  America has many very fine universities in the south such as Duke, Vanderbilt, Baylor, Rice, Georgia Tech and others where medical breakthroughs are being worked on for diseases such as AIDS.

So it is unfair to portray everyone down there as a dumb rednecks, it is simply not the case...Up north we have many dumb folks as well, it is a mixed bag...Bears family member should know that the earth is billions of years old, not trillions and Darwin never said man descended from apes, but from Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon...Of course Judeo-Christian teachings say Adam came from the dirt of the earth and Eve from Adam's rib and people desparately want to believe that or it makes them feel like lesser creatures otherwise I suppose..It is a shame many want to take science and evolution out of schools and replace them with "faith-based" teachings.  There is room for both faith and science in peoples lives.

Jody

[minismom]

Dh and I both grew up in south Louisiana.  I had relatives who lived in a town called Cut-off.  It was literally where the land cut off into the swamp.  I grew up in baton rouge, dh in new orleans.  Now that we live in the fridgid tundra north, I do miss the food.  The home made pralines, gumbo with fresh okra and shrimp, crawfish boils (no, I don't suck the heads), pecan trees in the back yard and magnolia trees in the front yard.  What we don't miss is the pollution, racism, hurricanes, and Edwin Edwards!

Mum