I was born and raised
in the "Heart of Dixie",
south Alabama.
I have lived here all of my adult life.
There is no better place on
earth than "Dixie". I had never
given lot of thought as to
what it meant to me to be a
"southern woman", but recently
I have and I am very happy to say I
am one of this proud group of
women that are known as
"southern belles". I would like to
share some memories and thoughts
regarding the southland, what it
means to me to have grown
up here
The south, when I was a child,
was a wonderful place to grow up.
I believe it still is but things have
changed a lot. When I was small,
no one had air conditioning, and
almost every home had a porch to
sit on and "cool off". In those days,
the windows were up in the spring,
summer and early fall all the time.
I remember we never closed the wood
doors at night, simply hooked the
screen doors and left them open for
the cool night air to come in.
Today, that would be impossible due
to the increased crime rate here as in
every other part of the country.
In those days however, people sat
on their porches and talked back
and forth from porch to porch,
even though the homes were not
that close together. We also
walked a lot, even if we owned cars
we would just take a walk, maybe
around a block or two or "up town"
to window shop. This was not done
for exercise, it was done for pleasure,
we walked slowly and enjoyed seeing
our neighbors on their porches,
speaking to them as we walked.
Most children, if we lived in town,
walked to school and it was fun
walking together on the sidewalks
that all the streets in the old part
of town still have. In the autumn,
the smell of burning leaves,
after being raked, along with the
wonderful smells of southern cooks
wafted to us as we walked home in
the afternoons. It seems to me
autumn came earlier in those days,
or at least cold weather came earlier.
I remember being cold at all the
football games, unless it was the
first one, and that is not true now.
They are starting their season with
the temperature still in the 90's here.
Rarely does it get really
cold until football season is over.
Also, in my school days, we went
to the "drug store", in a southern
town, in the cities up north, I
guess it was the "soda fountain"....
but those were in our drug stores,
and they had stools at the counter
as well as booths just like
many restaurants have today.
That was the meeting place after
school, for cherry cokes, floats,
and maybe hamburgers and french
fries. The things that were told there
were as good as the last gossip
heard at school that day. Many
boyfriend-girlfriend relationships
started in the "drug store". We
went whether it was hot or cold,
it made no difference to us.
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