In Birmingham, Alabama we got to spend some time with a couple we’ve known almost since we got married. Our stories are kind of parallel, theirs being a second marriage occurring a little bit after our own. I ran the boiled peanuts thing by the Wife who is not a native of the area but also not a northerner.
She straightened me out about the situation right away saying, “First of all, honey, they’re not boiled peanuts. There’s no ‘oi’ sound down here. They’re bald peanuts. Say it after me, bald peanuts.” I said, “Bald peanuts,” drawing out the ‘aul’ sound like she did. She nodded her approval and said, “Second, if you didn’t eat any of ’em you’re not missing much since they taste like something crawled in your mouth, shit, and then died.” As I registered this description I thought of another sign I had seen and asked, “What about Cajun Bald Peanuts?” She continued without any change of expression, “Right. Same thing crawls in your mouth but this time it shits fire, then dies.” Got it.
Birmingham is an incredibly lovely city; lush, green and gently hilly, but the real kick for us was the listening. The accent in the Deep South is a killer in general but not nearly as hard on the ears as our Noo Yawk must be for them. We had a lot of southern treats like fried green tomato sandwiches and key lime pie. And when you order iced tea in a restaurant you get asked if you want ‘sweet tea’. Sweet tea is the equivalent of an insulin coma. It’s like sucking on syrup.
I didn’t think anything in the world would be too sweet for Husband but he actually went back to ordering unsweetened iced tea with sugar on the side. One waitress asked why, saying she just loved sweet tea. But she brought the plain tea and sugar packets anyway, about twenty of them, carrying them over with both hands. When Husband picked up two and started to open them she wailed, “Two?! You’re gonna use two?? Shoot, two would just make me mad.”
Another southern phrase as popular as it is cryptic is “Bless your heart.” We heard this everywhere and discovered it can somehow be molded to fit every conceivable situation. When we first arrived in Alabama we realized we had left our state map behind so we pulled over to a half dozen service stations to get one and were told repeatedly, “We got no maps. Where do you want to go?” We kept explaining we just wanted a map so we could explore the area and the response was always “Bless your heart.” We walked out each time wondering if we were being thought endearing or pitiful, as in “How lovely of you to want to visit our town” or “You came all the way down here with no map, you morons?” Depending on the intent and demeanor of the person saying it, “Bless your heart” can mean anything from “Well, aren’t you just the sweetest thing?” to “Get out of my sight, you wretched pile of walking skin.” When people are smiling that big you just can’t tell.
After Birmingham we aimed for Nashville, Tennessee and the first sign we saw after we crossed over into Elvisland was a giant billboard inviting truckers and anyone who fantasized about what truckers purportedly fantasize about to come visit Boobie Bungalow. Fast on the heels of that sign was one offering a tour of the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg. I won’t insult my intelligent readership with the reasons we bypassed the apparently world famous Boobie Bungalow but we also vetoed the liquor tour since Husband and I really aren’t drinkers. Except for me. I am a big fan of a glass of white wine with dinner and if given a choice would choose two glasses of wine with one dinner over two dinners with one glass of wine. There have even been evenings of tough days when the kitchen could have wrapped my dinner to go before it even reached the table as long as they didn’t touch the wine.
Which reminds me of my ex-mother-in-law who used to order dinner and two desserts when we took her out and then tell the waiter to just bring the desserts to the table and wrap up her whole dinner to take home. I also remember her frequently calling family members by the dog’s name and the dog did not have a human name, it had a dog name. Come to think of it I never once heard her call the dog by the wrong name. Bless her heart.