Stories, humor, travel, news, links, poetry, personal essays, memoirs, and lots more. No bells and whistles, just good reading.

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Home Articles Links Stories from the Press Snippets Analecta Message Board Editor's Bio Bulletin Board Submissions Free Update E-mail Link to USADS Oct~2002 featured articles Nov~2002 featured articles Dec~2002 featured articles Jan~2003 featured articles Feb~2003 featured articles Mar~2003 featured articles Apr~2003 featured articles May~2003 featured articles ___________________ ARTICLES ABOUT SOUTHERN PEOPLE AND PLACES . . . AND ANYTHING ELSE WE FANCY! One of the best sites on the Net for readers, writers, storytellers, travelers, nostalgia buffs, and gossips. Southern Talk "My Aunt Christine would carry on in this vein for a while telling one tale after another, and then she would say, ‘Now, laying all jokes and foolishness aside . . .’ Something she never could quite do." -- Dorothy Shawhan “I’ve been thinking lately about the numerous allusions to textile terminology in daily speech. ‘Spinning a yarn,’ ‘weaving a tale,’ ‘following the thread of conversation,’ ‘tied up in knots,’ are some of these interesting phrases which link up with storytelling, conversation, and the human condition.” -- Pat Brown “Poetry is . . . What makes us look at what we weren’t paying attention to.” -- Carolyn Elkins "Mississippi has long been more southern than the rest of the South, and that goes double for the Mississippi Delta, which has been dubbed ‘the most southern place on earth.’ So the conditions that fostered the blues throughout the South were intensified in Mississippi, especially the Delta.” -- Steve Cheseborough Blues Traveling "In the Depression years of the 1930s canning and preserving were an inevitable part of small-town Southern life, but I suspect they were, as much as anything, part of a system by which neighbors and relatives communicated their caring for each other." -- Charles East "If you can’t do it with feeling, don’t." -- Patsy Cline "Why would you take a nude Caribbean cruise? Fifty per cent of Americans are overweight. The fastest growing segment of our population is people over seventy. If I want to see a naked old fat person I take a shower." -- Jack Kean "In search of my mother’s garden I found my own." -- Alice Walker "[God is] like a man that’s got too many mules ... And ... when Monday morning comes, he can ... hem some of them up and even catch them if he’s careful about not never turning his back on the ones he ain’t hemmed up." -- William Faulkner Requiem for a Nun "By far the finest of all musical gifts is the hollerin’ (also called hollering for the Lord). This is yodeling at its best--no more to be likened to what is heard on the vaudeville stage than grand opera can be compared with the hurdy-gurdy. It is the grand opera of the Okefenokee, where it is a common possession of man, woman and child." -- National Geographic, 1934 "The hotter the summer the colder the winter." -- Southern saying “What was so important about today? I bolted up in bed. Hot damn! Summer vacation!” -- Tim McLaurin Keep of the Moon "Every time I put by enough money for a trip to Europe, I end up purchasing a ticket to one of the more remote sections of the deep South, knowing fully in my mind that Europe and its environs carry no such rich traditions and inspirational fertility as are embodied in this section of our America." -- W. C. Handy "The highest result of education is tolerance." -- Helen Keller “Inside grandfather’s house were pillows with ruffles, matting on the floors, rugs, books, whatnots, and furniture gilded by my aunt ... It was a beautiful world to live in.” -- Karl Wolfe "Cunnin’ better than strong." -- Creole saying "Morning, noon and nighttime, from dawn to dark, one song would turn into another or back into itself as Mama drew water from the well, washed, milked, cooked, swept, scrubbed, gardened, quilted, sewed, doctored, scolded, and wrung the necks of chickens." -- Al Young "[Grandmother] just sat in a chair rocking and ‘twiddling’ her thumbs. I often hear the expression, ‘twiddlin’ your thumbs,’ but my grandmother was the only person I have ever known who actually did it -- for years." -- Bonnie Horton "Summer in the South! Ahhh, ain’t it fine?" -- Boogaloo Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Click here! ________________ ~Southern Speak~ “canopyn” [counterpane] ~~a bedspread~~ “Her granny left her a needlepoint canopyn that those kids are just gonna ruin.” For more great Southern expressions, please click here. @2001, 2002, 2003 All Rights Reserved Best viewed on IE Updated Jun/03

~June '03 Featured Articles~ Beautiful poem for Memorial Day! OLD MEMORIES by George T. Turner ~~June Articles~~ Son Child by John Milton Wesley We welcome this internationally acclaimed writer to our pages here at USADEEPSOUTH, and what a treat for our readers! In this poem John takes us back to his childhood in the Mississippi Delta. You don’t want to miss the beauty and pain in these words. Hey, Paw, We Got Bagels? by Jack Kean Is CBS really planning to do a reality show on the Deep South? Kean says, “Forgeddaboutit” -- but he says this in a most entertaining way. You’ll see. Okra~~A Totally Exaggerated Family Tale by Edward V. Folkes What’s a kid to do when Uncle Carl eats all the okra? A little ingenuity does the trick, and if you’ve ever been in this position you’ll wish you’d thought of it. Oldie But Goodie by Lonnye Sue Sims Pearson Who is that old woman staring back from Lonnye Sue’s mirror? When did she arrive on the scene? And just how long is she planning to stick around? Lonnye Sue knows that of which she writes. Memories of a Family Reunion by Randy Hill Now, this is not just any reunion story. No, sir. This is writing that will take you back to summer nights, sleeping porches, haunting nocturnal whistles and whines . . . and the magic of fireflies. A Boy and His Fiddle by Gene Goodson Click here for more fabulous writing from Miz Moppy. In this story she pens a tribute to her wonderful fiddler brother. Hey, Ye Editor guarantees you’ll hear the music! Line of Demarcation by Kathy Hardy Rhodes Rhodes is living with a stranger. Sort of. All of a sudden hubby is getting difficult, and the truth is that he’s the one with the problem. Kathy can flat tell a story. More USADEEPSOUTH Book Notes with Gusty Russel Scattergood Enjoy Gusty Scattergood’s June review. This month she discusses Louise Shaffer’s The Three Miss Margarets. Set in Georgia, Shaffer's debut novel is part family saga and part good old-fashioned mystery. A good 'un! Uncle Willie Goes To A Baptizin’ by Asa Sparks Everybody in Alabama calls him AsA, but you can pronounce it however you like. He’s new here at USADS, and are we glad to have him. Funny, funny man! (Uh, watch your toes.) The Twins Journal by Charles W. Dowdy Dowdy’s wife goes off and leaves him home alone with their one year old twin boys. All day. His journal will leave you laughing out loud -- or your money back. Random Thoughts by Kent Fletcher Fletcher sits on the porch and ruminates all about friendships and other deep subjects. And then sometimes he just sits. Or sleeps. Life is good. Magnolia by Barbara J. Robinson Barbara Robinson joins the ranks of Southern storytellers with her book, Magnolia~~A Wilted Flower. This excerpt introduces readers to a lovely little girl . . . Birdwatchers Have More Fun by Beth Boswell Jacks Last but not least, Ye Editor tells you about her latest hobby. It’s safe. It’s comfy. It’s inexpensive. It’s gonna blow your mind. Birds are dumb, right? Hmmmmm . . . ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ And why not enjoy these "oldies but goodies"? Fats Domino: The Main Man by Tom Givens Grits On My Overalls by Jennifer Burgess Having A Bad Hair Day by Cliff Prewett Goodbye, Norman Mailer, I’m Moving South by David Davis Growing Up Apart With Jimmy Carter by Hugh Frank Smith Snippets: newspaper column by Beth Boswell Jacks Mississippi--The Second Time Around by Bob Civin Family Resemblance by Jeannette W. Davis Highway 61 by Jamie, Will, and Beth Jacks Excerpt: Peddler’s Grandson by Edward Cohen Belize by Valerie Clark Elderhostel: In Search of Faulkner by Tom Fisher Reflections by Jim Goudelock Skiing On the Catfish Pond by Wes Wilson Thurston's Musings by Thurston Howell Finer Cosmetics by Betty W. Beamguard The Healing by Clyde Boswell

Stories, humor, travel, news, links, poetry, personal essays, memoirs, and lots more. No bells and whistles, just good reading.