"you sound like a Yankee"

My sister is the globetrotter, going anywhere she pleases. I’ve done a little traveling myself, but every city I live in, for whatever reason, is below the Mason-Dixon Line. I used to be ashamed to be Southern: for years I was shunning fried chicken and sawmill gravy, and speaking deliberately with a Midwestern accent I picked up from some friends. As a park ranger, I could get through an entire history talk without a single y'all, and had many a tourist to tell me “you sound like a Yankee.” This charade carried on for some time.

And yet, there were moments when the distant motoring of cars reminded me of the sound of boats motoring in the bay. I could close my eyes and smell the salt in the air. The afternoon sun was warming the side of my face. The romance! It is inescapable. At last I know that deep down I have always loved the South. The people here are more relaxed, polite, and warm than any other place I have been. I don’t want to be lost in swelling city populations, afraid to look people in eye. This move back to Charleston won’t be a step back; it will be a step forward, with a huge smile on my face. Now about that sawmill gravy…