Puttin' Down Roots

There is just something about the South that calls its people home. Many dream about leaving. Many talk about leaving. When they do leave, they usually come home after a few years. There are some that don't return but they take the South with them. I have had relatives to leave the South and move out West, but sooner or later they found their way home. I have had relatives in the armed services that have lived all over the world, but they have always found their home. 

I was no different than anyone else. As a girl; I wanted leave, to go somewhere else. I wanted to see some place new, some place different. To this day, DH and I dream about moving to Montana or Alaska. We want to go somewhere there are fewer people and wide open spaces, but our roots are here. We were both raised by our parents with the belief that family was something important and a part of who we are. We know we could never leave, but we still dream. 

When it came time for DH and I to put down roots we knew that we didn't want to leave home. We wanted to live close to our parents and our family. We were young, in love, and without much money to our name. With the help of both of our parents and a generous offer from my parents, we put down our roots on a piece of land that was once part of my paternal great-grandfather's dairy farm. It was a piece of land that I loved playing on as a child. It was a piece of land below my parents house and only 10 minutes away from DH's parents. 27 years later, we have made that piece of land our home and it has become a part of us. 

 

People not from the South don't understand our attachment to our families or our land. It is hard to explain. The best way to explain it is this; the best thing about living in the South is having family close by and the worst thing about living in the South is having family close by. In other words, despite any quarrels or hard feelings, we know when we need them our family will always be there and they will have our backs. Family is such a part of our history and our heritage, it becomes a part of who we are. Our attachment to our land comes from the knowledge that our ancestors fought, sweated, toiled, for the land a lot of us live on and by feeling a connection to it, we are honoring our family and our past. Many won't get it and that is okay, because we do. 

 

"The South where love, family, & tradition are the sugar in our tea." unknown

 

"The South is more than a region - it's a state of mind, and Southerns seem forever returning there." The Book Of Southern Wisdom

 

Simply Southern and blessed to be born the South!