I saw the photos of bodies swinging from trees, heard the stories of black men dragged through the streets while tied to a truck and knew of that sentiment that insisted the “South will rise again,” a statement that conjures up images of plantations and old Negro gospels sung while picking cotton.
I never wanted to visit the South but really had no choice as my husband was from North Carolina. I had already gone once while on a day trip to Virginia, where a tour bus brought me to the home of George Washington. I loved the stillness of the weather and how the Potomoc ran along the property, rushing past a thick forest of trees and hills. George Washington’s Mt. Vernon estate was a lovely site, until I considered the slaves, the heat and the oppression. This is truly the South, I thought, as I wandered past slave homes, too frightened by the sadness and inhumanity. This was not a place for me.
Before going back to the tour bus, I stopped at the gift shop where a blue haired old lady followed me through the store. With paranoia growing, I finally stopping in front of a pile of touristy books. The old lady came closer, stared at me for a bit, then began speaking in a very sweet voice. “You are an Oriental, aren’t you?,” she began, clasping her fingers together like a proper lady. “You have the prettiest face. I am happy that I got to see it.”
She offered the simplest, sincerest smile before disappearing into the other masses of shop customers, leaving me dumbfounded.
The South has always been like that for me. It has offered so many glimpses of gentility and grace, along with such beauty and kindness that makes the stares of curiosity easy to overcome. In fact, the only racist incident I have ever had to deal with on my trips to the South was in dealing with a room filled with Filipino bar girls who, believing I was honing in on their territory, began to spit nails in Tagalog.
Most other experiences were different and enchanting. My husband’s best friend once brought me on an enjoyable drive from Atlanta to Georgia, where I semi-admired the odd sized flying bugs that spun around and lazily bounced in the humid summer weather. We would make frequent stops and linger near the Slurpee machine, trying to counter the heavy heat with a few sips on cold drinks that would disappear within seconds. Even as the car air conditioning continued to sputter, we took our time along the long roadways where I looked through the masses of trees in rural towns to see the high iron bars surrounding plush green lawns of stately old Southern homes. It was every bit the modern Tara from “Gone With The Wind” hidden from view, and I spent a long time trying to catch a glimpse until the disappearing sun began to diminish my ability to see anything beyond the tall trees.
In Savannah, we did what we could to hide from the stifling heat. We sat in movie theaters, lingered in air conditioned restaurants and sat still on couches, waiting for the sun to disappear so that we could move in comfort. On Tybee Island, we sunk our feet into sand on summer evenings, listening to the laughter around us. I love the slow Southern accents, far more gentler and subtle than Paula Deen’s overwrought twang.
Most times, we would all drive around looking for places to eat. Deep fried foods or gravy laden dishes never appealed to me, but we would always find something delicious. I had a chance to eat authentic Georgia low-boil stew, a dish that I was introduced by an attorney friend in Macon who liked to wear cowboy boots to his court appearances. The savory stew was a jumble of shrimp, blue crab, potatoes, sausage and corn stewed in a crab boil. It has a strong, spicy crab taste that brought the flavors of the local sea catch to life.
Southern folks know how to cook, making recipes that harmonize both white and black cultures. I had to get used to biscuits, grits and hushpuppies served with my meals, along with the sheer volume of food that would come out of restaurant kitchens. The worst offender is Shoney’s, where the buffets are large trays of bacon, sausage, grits, eggs, fruits sitting in syrup and diabetes inducing sugary breads of astonishing proportion. Shoney’s is a visual experience, the place where diners lose their mind to balance 3-4 plates piled high with food as they teeter back to their chairs. The amount of consumable food is absurd, as is the sheer piles of uneaten leftovers wasting away into congealing, pudding-like slop on messy plates.
We tried to minimize our trips to Shoney’s once we were in North Carolina. My husband, a bona fide native of Winston-Salem, wanted to move us back to his home state, an appeal that would have never worked if I thought that Shoney’s was the only dining alternative. We visited local restaurants, including a Greek diner where he ordered a plate of S.O.S. (Shit ona shingle) for me to try. I stared at the dish, a slop of white gravy mixed with chipped beef sitting on top of some bread. As I looked back at him, I noticed the eyes of the other diners focused upon me, daring me to push away a plate of their beloved cuisine. I shoveled the S.O.S. into my mouth, sending chunks warm, pastey Elmer’s glue mixed with some saltier beef taste straight to my gullet, hoping to bypass the chewing that might make the food remain too long on my tongue.
I was less impressed with the foods of North Carolina but finally enjoyed a great meal at the home of my husband’s best friend’s mother, who fed me home made kim chee and a bowl of rice.
We went on long drives exploring the roads to the North Carolina coast, where we passed old slave homes, nothing more than aging wood nailed together to form an inelegant, windowless box, along with other historical points that dotted the stunning landscape until we reached the calmer waters of the Atlantic. Many of the shoreline homes stand on stilts, while others are nestled on winding roads, obscured by deep green foliage. My husband grew up in 100% solar beach home that his father built on the shores near Wilmington. He grew up in an more carefree life filled with days spent digging for clams, surfing during hurricanes, riding his motorcycle along the beach and playing football. It was the ideal American life, so different from my own city experience of broken concrete and MUNI bus rides.
At some point, North Carolina began to feel like the land of strip malls, a larger Los Angeles void of traffic, noise and palm trees. It also gave me the first ever Walmart experience, and we wandered endlessly through long aisles, walking past mountains of dog food bags, home wares, clothing, guns and other material goods that never seemed to end. At some point I expected to be rewarded with a rollercoaster ride after experiencing Americana-land, but we just ended following my father-in-law out of the store with a bucket of paint. We would return a few hours later after discovering that the paint bucket was filled with water, the unfortunate result of a fraudulently return from a previous customer.
There were other episodes like this, where we would have to ask for a refund or return on an items that ended up being broken in the box or missing a few features. There was always tampering or stealing, though it was done with such delicacy. Someone had taken the time to fish items of a box, close it back up and place it neatly on the shelf so that the shopping experience would not be too disruptive or aesthetically offending to other curious customers. It is a bit different out here in California, where I often see open boxes of diapers next to discarded smelly diapers, as if this were some sort of proclamation of clever thievery.
On my final trip to the South, we visited my husband’s grandfather, an onery old man whose insensitivity, past bouts with alcoholism and bigoted views made me want to wait out this particular visit in the family car. I wanted to avoid experiencing the real old South, where I pictured rampant use of the N word and waving shotguns. Instead, I was brought into a lovely home where two poodles, unwisely fed chocolate, barked as they ran around in circles, chased by the grandfather’s second wife. The home was decorated with doilies and lace, and the grandfather sat at his lounger as he watched me walk across the freshly vacuumed carpet.
“Does she speak English?,” he grunted. Before I could answer, my husband snarled an angry response.
The grandfather looked at me for a bit, giving me the several times over as his head seemed to bypass his neck, sinking into heavy shoulders and an expansive, slouching chest. As I stood looking at him, the grandfather began to recount his experience as a young soldier stationed in Hawaii during World War II. He had met some “Buddha heads,” local Japanese American soldiers who taught him how to swear in Japanese.
Grandfather pulled a “Boku no chimpo wa futomaki desu” (my dick is the size of a thick round sushi roll) out of thin air. That was followed by other choice words and statements in Japanese, leaving me with the impression that the bigoted gentleman rather enjoyed his stay in Hawaii.
I had to provide some translation to the bad words as the grandfather had forgotten the meaning of the things he said. This all seemed to relax me, because we could both dwell in the realm of sheer stupidity, much to the shock of my husband and in-laws. Instead of continuing this line of conversation, we were hustled out of the door to our next destination.
I never saw him again.
I can understand why my husband wants to move back to the South, although that desire has waned with the increasingly backwards political climate of North Carolina. Every place in this country offers a balance of good and bad. Still, life in the South is beautiful and mannerly, where kindness and gentility still occupy an important place in its culture. When you strip the South of its politics and religion, it offers a pleasant, remarkable American life.
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