Drive A Hundred Miles And The Barbecue

Every Southerner, I Think, Knows People Like Bill Clinton, Maybe Not Quite As Smart And Maybe Not Quite As Liberal, But Kind Of A Glad-handing, Country-club Yuppie Southerner. The Problem Is We Don't Have Labels For Middle-class Southerners.

I Think There's A Suspicion In The South Of People Putting On Airs. You See It In Most Successful Southern Politicians, But You Also See It In Someone Like Richard Petty, Who May Be A Multimillionaire Stock Car Driver, But He's Also Beloved Because He Has A Nice Self-deprecatory Way About Him.

The South Is Like My Favorite Pair Of Blue Jeans. It's Shrunk Some, Faded A Bit, Got A Few Holes In It. It Just Might Split At The Seams. It Doesn't Look Much Like It Used To, But It's More Comfortable, And There's Probably A Lot Of Wear Left In It.

I Can See Why Many Southerners, Black Ones In Particular, Don't Like The Implication That Southernness And The Confederate Heritage Are One And The Same, Because They're Not. On The Other Hand, There Are People Who Want To Extirpate That Completely And Want Folks To Spit On The Graves Of Their Ancestors.

No One Would Stand For It [being The Fool In The Media] In A Minute If You Took Any Other Group -native Americans, African Americans, Hispanics, Women - But Somehow It's Okay To Do That With Hillbillies.