The Myth of Southern Hospitality

I get why people blithely accept that Southern hospitality is a real thing. It’s a constant PR theme blasting out of the South. Come see us! Virginia is for Lovers! (But not interracial ones till the Supreme Court case of Loving v. Virginia.) But why, since the recent mean-spirited legislation out of the southern states (e.g. voter suppression, anti-rights for anyone not white and male, anti-choice, anti-trans, book banning, on and on), do people still buy it? Whatever hospitality they show is purely on the surface.

I have a little experience with this world. I started college at Auburn University in Alabama in 1971 and lived and worked or went to school in Alabama or North Carolina until 1990. That’s a long damn time. When Nancy and I finally left, I vowed I’d never go back.

Southerners, in the main, are the descendants of Scots-Irish and Irish shepherds, and, as such, are extremely territorial. I was taught in my history classes that they settled first in the mid-Atlantic states and then migrated south along the eastern edge of the Appalachians, all the way to Alabama where they ran into the Gulf of Mexico. The ones who settled in my West Virginia hills were the most suspicious of outsiders. But they all are.

My theory is that the outward hospitality you see is a version of the lesson: Keep your friends close but your enemies closer. It’s like when they say, “Bless your heart!” they really mean, “Fuck you.” And double that if you’re an outsider.

Once when I was a lawyer at SAS Institute, a computer software company in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park, my boss’s boss took a phone call for me from an important client and came to deliver the message. When she began, “George, my friend,” I clutched my wallet, watch, and briefcase. I was in trouble; I could apologize and make a good explanation of why I had been unable to take a call, and she would accept it, but she would secretly hold it against me.

One time I was flying out of the airport in Greensboro, NC, and I set my bag down at the foot of the ticket agent’s desk, waiting to lift it onto her scale. A tall, thin, razor-faced fellow turned and slowly looked down at my bag, which I’d set down a good two feet away from his. Then he glared at me.

Southern high schools used to insist (and maybe still do when they can get away with it) on saying Christian prayers before football games. There was litigation the upshot of which was that, under The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, no state entity may prefer one religion over another: thus no Christian prayers at public school football games. The South simply doesn’t get this, for two reasons, at least: they say, (A) we’re a Christian nation, what’s the big deal, and (B) the Feds can’t tell us what to do.

The argument under (A) fails because it melts my eyeballs. Argument (B) falls under their fondest love: state’s rights. That’s the theory that they use to justify slavery, voting rights violations, you name it. But if you go to a football game and you’re not a Christian, do you feel welcomed when Our Lord Jesus Christ is fervently invoked?

There was one partner at my first law firm, a serial sexual harasser, who, when in law school, must have given Stuart Dorsett (see post dated December 12, 2019) a run for his money. Nancy and I were in his van one night—I have no memory why—and he put a tape of “humor” by Lewis Grizzard on his sound system. Lewis Grizzard has long gone to his reward, but, in what he would have been pleased to consider his prime, he was a journalist and C-level comedian. He made most of the jokes that night at the expense of Yankees. Nancy came from Michigan, and my parents were Pennsylvanians, and the partner knew that.

I mentioned in an earlier post how my last name was treated. I don’t know how many times I spoke and spelled my name for a clerk at a public office, a meeting, you name it, and I’d pronounce it as it is: Ja-WRECK-y. And the clerk would squint, wince, and repeat wrongly, “Ja-RACK-y? Whut kinda name is thay-at?” After a while, I’d say, “It’s American.” They always ignored that.

In my first year, one of the senior partners, Winston, invited me, the other new associate that year, and our spouses over one night as a welcoming gesture. We were to have a drink at their house and then go to their country club for dinner. I have no memory of why this next part occurred, but he invited us to try a southern food called “beaten biscuits.” They probably fed the Confederate army just fine. He remarked, “Our friend Jeff Headley calls them hockey pucks.” Alert! Note the “friend”? Jeff was from New York and had a real Yankee accent. Winston still bore a grudge, apparently, about how some other adult expressed a little humor at the inedible nature of a southern delicacy. Jeff was right about those beaten biscuits, by the way.

When I was in college, one year I roomed in a suite in a low-slung brick apartment complex with three other boys, all from Birmingham—Mark, Johnny, and Robert. I had foolishly simply signed a lease, not knowing who else would show up. They were all buddies and fraternity brothers and the next year would move into the fraternity house. They were pleasant enough, but it was clear that we had differences. Against all odds, we became pretty good friends. I bought them bourbon in Atlanta where it was legal, and we spent many evenings talking about school, girls—whatever college students talk about.

At least Mark and Johnny and I did. Robert, my immediate roommate, was overcome with tears when he found out that my girlfriend and I smoked dope and had sex when he was out, which he was a lot of the time, being in the enormously challenging School of Architecture. When Robert moved into the fraternity with the others, he was discovered to be enormously well-endowed, and his last name, Montgomery, evolved into Hungomery. I didn’t say that they don’t have a sense of humor.

After I graduated, we essentially lost touch. At one point when I was in my MFA program, I remember writing Johnny and apologizing for not being in touch and promising to do a better job. Johnny wrote back: “I’m glad to know that you think you always can.” I know that “passive-aggressive” is a disfavored term, but I don’t know how else to explain his statement.

I took my MFA, came back to Auburn to teach for six years, and then went to law school. I ended up in Birmingham as a summer associate for a firm now still somewhat in existence, a rarity after 30 years. The offices were in a typical monster downtown office tower. The partners sprung for drinks, endured my incompetence, and were glad to have a fleet, strong-armed center fielder on the firm’s softball team.

One day, I stepped onto the elevator and who but Mark and Johnny were standing at the back. We exited in the lobby and had a conversation establishing where we all worked and what we were doing. I told them that I’d be in Birmingham all summer, and I hoped we could have lunch sometime. Then we parted ways. I never heard from them again.

Silent Sam, now absent from the campus at UNC-Chapel Hill