Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Southern, Southwestern, and Portions of the Eastern United States Living

Delaware is not a part of the South. It just isn’t. Yes, it's next to Maryland. It's also next to New Jersey. Ask anyone who’s actually from the South, and they’ll tell you that they would not consider Delaware as being a part of the South.


With some clever reasoning, a state such as Texas could just get in by a stretch, and that’s only because it’s a) immediately adjacent to the South, b) actually in the southern half of the United States, geographically speaking, and c) was settled by many Southerners, who brought their culture and ways of life with them (although there are some Southerners who would tell you that no way is Texas a part of the South). And if you want to use the Civil War definition, Texas was a part of the Confederacy. Delaware, however…no.

So why does information about Delaware keep showing up in Southern Living magazine?

Thursday, May 11, 2006

For Amstaff Mom: A Clue-like Moment

Deals and I were at her grandparents’ old house (“old” as in both “former” and “been around since the 1920s”). No one has lived there for about a year, and there’s no electricity. That was okay, though, because we had plenty of sunlight from the windows for what we were doing, which was cleaning out some of the closets. There was a problem, however, when we decided to tackle one of the upstairs closets. It was deep, of the walk-in variety. There was no window or skylight to illuminate the back end, and we needed to go to the back to see what was there.

“I know,” I said, and pulled out my keychain light. I turned it on, and the beam emitting from it wasn’t nearly as bright as I had thought it would be. Not good. Then Deals got all clever.

“You go first,” she said, nudging me forward in to the closet. “I’ll be right behind you.”

‘Now where have I heard that before?’ I thought. ‘Oh, right.’ And I immediately thought of Clue. And Amstaff Mom. And I didn’t want to go in to the closet.