Thursday Three--The Exile Version

I'm a Southerner living in San Diego, exiled nearly six years ago because I don't eat grits or shoot deer, and I purged the word fixin' from my vocabulary. And I couldn't just move to one of the border states, you know, those states that pretend not to be Southern but really are (I'm talking about you Virginia). I had to relocate clear across the United States and far enough away from Santee (local joke) to make my life a little safer than otherwise. But like any exile, I miss the South. So when Largehearted boy (via possumblog) posted this last week, I had to give it some thought but couldn't avoid answering it:

1) What three (3) Southern places, towns, or regions (aside from your own, if you currently reside in the South) do you think you would enjoy living in?

I've lived in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana, and visited every other Southern state, so this one took some time (not to mention that anything I say could be used against me). At one time I would have said New Orleans, but now that I don't drink, the city doesn't have such a romantic pull on me anymore (plus I'd probably end up weighing 300 pounds after living there for any amount of time). Savannah, Georgia seems like a nice place. Perfect mix of the old south with the new. I could probably tolerate Charlotte, North Carolina, but it's a little landlocked. If I were going for the small town, I wouldn't mind living in Fairhope, Alabama on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay. If it's a big enough place for Fanny Flagg and Winston Groom...then again.

2) What 3 (three) Southern places, towns, or regions have you ever visited and would never want to set foot in again? (I make the special note that you must have actually visited there, mainly because some people have irrational negative opinions about places based entirely upon what they have heard from others. Nothing like first-hand experience.)

Without a doubt, I would never want to live in Albany, Georgia. I spent a week in Albany and couldn't wait to get out. I'm sure it's a nice place, but my impression--a week of testing for lead-based paint at a public housing complex--was otherwise. Same goes for Sumter, South Carolina. A trip to the mall in Sumter was as close as I've ever come to a real-life Dawn of the Dead experience. Granted, it was the December before the first Bush's war and Sumter was the staging area for B52s, but I found nothing about the town that would draw me to settle there. And you couldn't pay me enough money to live in Moss Point, Mississippi, or anywhere on the Mississippi Gulf coast. Moss Point will always trigger memories of a double header played downwind from a paper plant on a hot March Saturday while nursing a badly bruised wrist on my throwing arm and playing shortstop for the first time. Can you say 0-7 with two errors and the inability to taste food for a month.

3) Finally, what are the three most distinctly Southern tourist traps you have ever visited?

Pretty much the entire eastern part of Tennessee, especially Dollywood and its surroundings. Southerners take pride in the Smokies, and no childhood is complete without a trip to Gatlinburg. I'm going to also include the National Peanut Festival in Dothan, Alabama. So you grow cotton, the crop is constantly destroyed by an insect, so someone comes up with an alternative, you grow the peanut, and because of that you become a small town in the corner of Alabama that worships the peanut and the bug that caused you to grow it. Let's throw a parade. I have a cousin who was Miss Peanut Festival 1987 (I think), so I speak from experience. Finally, and probably the grandest trap of them all would have to be Po Folks in Buena Park, California. A Po Folks in the South is one thing; we can all appreciate the shotgun shack feel and the mason jar drinking glasses. But put a Po Folks in a suburb of L.A. and next to Knott's Berry Farm and you have one strange gathering place/tourist trap. They do have some mighty fine fried okra.

Comments

[eustacia]

1) Any good southern beach would be lazy and nice (outer banks, key west, destin). You can't beat lying round in the sun drinking bushwackers. Also the smoky mountains are cool cause it's actually smoke. And New Orleans will always have a special place in my heart, even though it's trashy.

2) I never really liked miami (is that really southern or it's own thing? I think neon goes there to die) Houston, TX was always really boring when i visited family there and it never made much of an impression. Hell, i'm rackin my brain for a third but to no avail. See, the souths no all that bad, eh.

3)Any sort of southern state fair is awsome not only to people watch and ride rides, but for all the goodies -- can you say elephant ears and frozen bananas. Beal St in Memphis had that distincly southern feel that i liked. I'd kind of like to think that the Greyhound racetrack was a distinctly southern thing since i would figure real towns would have racetracks -- but who knows.

And speaking of Po Folks -- you just brought back some good memories. That was the G family outing of choice when we got to go out to dinner. Long live the West Side Po Folks in our memory!

[Jeff]

Po Folks makes a pretty mean gumbo, too. My family frequented the one on 9th Avenue, back in the days when it was new and "innovative." Last time I was at the Pcola one it was a tad depressing.

Greyhound tracks are pretty much all over, but they do tend to be weirdly popular in Alabama. There's that big one between Auburn and Montgomery and several more scattered throughout the state.

I think the smoke in the Smokies is caused by pollen, but I could be wrong.

[david]

Check out this week's questions (at possumblog)... the best meme on the internet for my money.