You know, I forgot to mention slaw. Because slaw in the south is so much better than the watered-down mayonaisy stuff they pass off around here. It’s gotta be much more zippy, more mustard… It’s now 8:30am and I’m already hungry.

I’m sad to say, but, Heidi, when you said “might could” and “cut off,” I thought: well, what’s different about that? Oh, the things that have been engrained that I don’t even know about! And, ah, the Southern interest with the grave: up North, if you get mad, you stop talking to them or maybe cut them out of your will; down South, you kick them out of the family plot.

We used to get a dollar for every collard green and a penny for every black-eyed pea on New Years, much more financially lucrative than the tooth-fairy, depending how many slimy collards you can suck down.

And even though my mom lost her southern accent somewhere along the way, she still says we “might could” do something and tells me to “cut off” the lights. And you can always tell if she’s talking to GA on the phone, cuz the accent comes back.

Are the people who say pee-can the same folks who say willa-met (Willamette)?

I thought Black Eyed Peas was a music group… hmmm…

Piggly Wiggly Giggly. You gotta laugh at that. For some time, I thought that Pig ‘n’ Whistle and Piggly Wiggly must be the same place, but one was more of a nickname for t’other. ‘course, I never asked which was which.

Lastly, and this is obvious to anyone who’s been anywhere: if it ain’t Southern, it ain’t BBQ. My time in Memphis has been spent between work and BBQ joints: Rendevous, Steamboat, Corky’s, Interstate, Old Style, Neely’s, Leonard’s … just to name a couple.