Southern Heritage

Red potatoes being dug from my garden in 2021.

Southern Heritage is grandma’s fried chicken and cornbread. It is playing horseshoes with grandpa. It is picking the perfect watermelon in July. It is enjoying a glass of sweet tea under an old oak tree. Dirt roads and pickups. Deer hunting. Football on Fridays and Saturdays in the fall. Sundays on a church pew. It is the richest music culture in the world, born from a people who have no choice but to dig down into the human soul and hope for a brighter day. It is swimming holes in the summer; sweet potato pie on Thanksgiving. It is the mountains of Tennessee. The Gulf. The swampland and everything in between. It is corn fields that seem to stretch for miles, the sweetest peaches you’ll ever eat, fall peanut boils, and a plate of grits with a side of Conecuh sausage. It is sub-cultures within sub-cultures that all meld together to create one of the most unique places on Earth.

No flag could ever represent true Southern Heritage. But, it can certainly divide us.

Originally published via Facebook on July 17, 2020.