Southernness
(I got this from an email.)

Only a Southerner knows the difference between a hissie fit and a conniption fit, and that you don't "HAVE" them, you "PITCH" them.

Only a Southerner knows how many fish, collard greens, turnip greens, peas, beans, etc., make up "a mess."

Only a Southerner can show or point out to you the general direction of "yonder."

Only a Southerner knows exactly how long "directly" is, ... as in: "Going to town, be back directly."

Even Southern babies know that "Gimme some sugar" is not a request for the white, granular sweet substance that sits in a pretty little bowl in the middle of the table.

Only a Southerner, both knows and understands, the difference between a redneck, a good ol' boy, and po' white trash.

No true Southerner would ever assume that the car with the flashing turn signal is actually going to make a turn.

A Southerner knows that "fixin" can be used as a noun, a verb, or an adverb.

Only Southerners make friends while standing in lines, ... and when we're "in line," .... we talk to everybody!

Put 100 Southerners in a room and half of them will discover they're related, even if only by marriage.

In the South, y'all is singular, .... all y'all is plural.

Southerners know grits come from corn and how to eat them.

When you hear someone say, "Well, I caught myself lookin'," you know you are in the presence of a genuine Southerner!

Only true Southerners say "sweet tea" and "sweet milk." Sweet tea indicates the need for sugar and lots of it -- we do not like our tea unsweetened. "Sweet milk" means you don't want buttermilk.

And a true Southerner knows you don't scream obscenities at little old ladies who drive 30 MPH on the freeway. You just say,"Bless her heart" ... and go your own way.

To those of you who are still a little embarrassed by your Southerness: Take two tent revivals and a dose of sausage gravy and call me in the morning. Bless your heart!

And to those of you who are still having a hard time understanding all this Southern stuff, ... bless your hearts, I hear they are fixin' to have classes on Southernness as a second language!

So Garth Brooks now has a new mistress, Julia Roberts. They have been seen together recently at Chuck E. Cheese's.

Out of curiosity, I was recently looking up a little information about the South American War of the Triple Alliance. During that little search, I ran across references to an "Operation of Thirty Hours" that involved Brazil nearly going to war against Uruguay in 1971. But just try looking for that on Google. Luckily, I found a good English page about the affair.

The short story is that Uruguay came very close to electing a certain leftist party, and Brazil's dictator at the time didn't like that. There's a good chance the US was involved in getting the dictator to not like that, but it's also possible Brazil's politicians were worried about socialist or communist uprisings, like the one Fidel Castro led in Cuba.

Brazil's military forces were in their vehicles, ready to go (and expecting to control the country in a whopping thirty hours, hence the name of the operation), when the leftist government lost the election. Kind of like a war where nobody came.

I'm still learning a few things about romance.

I've seen a few of these around here. Well, maybe not a Parrott shell, but dangerous old Civil War stuff.

A collector of Civil War relics has been hospitalized after being injured while trying to defuse an old artillery shell at his home.

Lawrence Christopher was trying to remove gunpowder from a Civil War-era Parrott shell at an outbuilding at his home Monday when it exploded, authorities said. ...

After the explosion, an ordnance team from Fort Benning destroyed dozens of other shells found at Christopher's home after determining they were unsafe. They were destroyed Tuesday at a sheriff's training center.

I'm not a collector, but part of me thinks it was wrong for the sheriff to destroy those shells without Christopher's permission. They were apparently safe enough to move. If anything, I would have preferred the sheriff to confiscate them under some weapons regulation, and given them back after Christopher paid to have them deactivated.

Then again, I'm still dodging anvils.