Southern Style
'Good ol' boys' love their mamas, trucks and TVs By Ronda Rich Dixie Divas An e-mail arrived the other day from a sophisticated Yankee who needed advice. "I came South and fell in love with a redneck. Please tell me how to win his heart," she wrote. I needed clarification. I'm always suspicious when Yankees [...]
Whatever happened to wearing your Sunday's best? Fri, Oct 8, 2004 Whatever happened to Sunday clothes? Whatever happened to dresses and suits reserved exclusively for church, funerals and weddings? Clothes that didn't do double duty for a cookout or a bowling tournament? I wish I had a dollar for every Sunday in my youth when [...]
Can the South Survive? by Charlie Reese It was often said that the South would rise again, but a more appropriate question for today is, "Can the South survive as a distinct region and culture?" I'm not sure it can because of the vast migration of Yankees. Now, having been forced by circumstances to experience [...]
Special occasions don't have to be planned ahead By Ronda Rich Dixie Divas I never knew my friend's Aunt Elsie, but still this woman, a stranger to me, will never be forgotten by me. Though I never saw her face or heard her voice, the parable she authored always will be vivid and deeply ingrained [...]
Author has a new book out Thursday, April 14, 2005 By CASANDRA ANDREWS Staff Reporter Southerners, author Deborah Ford worries, may be losing touch with their roots. These roots have more to do with the quiet decline of regional traditions than with the lack of Miss Clairol touch-ups over the bathroom sink. Though, to be [...]
Those who teach make it easier for all of us Fri, Oct 1, 2004 Every decent diva, southern or not, has at least one good mentor. I have a few but the most powerful one, the one who throws her full heart into instructing me in the ways of proper southern womanhood is a tiny [...]
Southern belles are still around in Chilton By Julie Davis There is just something special about young ladies and women raised in the south and especially in Chilton County. Each week The Clanton Advertiser is adorned by lovely Chilton County ladies, who win pageants, play a sport for their high school, and are members of [...]
Southern belle resists the advances of a modern world By Pat MacEnulty Special Correspondent Posted October 3 2004 The Garden Angel. Mindy Friddle. St. Martin's Press. $23.95. 290 pp. The Southern novel is still alive and kicking, thank heavens, and Mindy Friddle gives the genre its due in The Garden Angel. The story concerns two [...]
South's influence grows, has impact across nation By Ronda Rich Dixie divas A reporter from a prominent newspaper in Washington called for an interview because he was doing an article on the sudden hip-ness of the word "y'all." Southern hip-hoppers, it turns out, have introduced the word into the slang vocabulary of the world's hippest [...]
Back yard is just the spot By Jane Clute, The Herald (Published September 28‚ 2004) With weather like we've had this past week, who wouldn't want to be out in the yard working? Well, maybe some golfers we know. Unfortunately some folks can't garden like they want to. Age, health problems, a bum knee, bad [...]