Whistlin’ Dixie

Tell me about the South … What do they do there? How do they live there? Why do they?

• William Faulkner

The other Sunday I was reading a column in the newspaper by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Paul Greenberg titled “Where does the South begin?” when I suddenly slowed to grasp the contents of the following paragraph: “A friend of mind puts the farthest extension of the South to wherever the last monument to the Confederate common soldier stands … But here in Arkansas, that would make Bentonville in the far north western corner of the state Southern. Funny, it doesn’t feel Southern, at least not to a Southerner. It feels midwestern.”

I must admit that in partial tribute to Mark Twain, who once wrote that the educated Southerner had no use for the letter “r” except at the beginning of a word, I thought to myself: Are you kidding me?

But let’s start at the beginning.

I was born in the South and have lived in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Louisiana, and for the past 29 years right here in Bentonville, Ark. As a young boy, my grandmother told me vivid tales of how Sherman’s soldiers had destroyed her grandmother’s home, chasing chickens around the yard while she watched from the top of a swaying pine tree.

Growing up, we had fried chicken every Sunday, my father taught Sunday School at the Baptist church until the day he died, I still say Coke to describe anything in the soda pop family, and once in Tallahassee I went into the kitchen of a restaurant in frustration to teach the cook how to properly prepare slow-cooked grits. So, bottom-line, I think I know my South. Here is the literature, charm, nature, passion for living, a genuine interest in all people, but there is also that darn accent.

Yeah, I got one.

I never really thought that much about it until work with Wal-Mart took me to the North. Usually I would get a sentence or two out of my mouth when “the question” would inevitably occur: “Where are you from?” I would say “Arkansas,” to which most people would then smile at me like you do at your 6-year-old when he first learns to ride a bike.

Once, a lady I was working with in New Jersey proceeded to explain all the “hard” words to me as we negotiated a purchase contract after hearing of my apparently rustic homeland.

Of course, Southern idioms in my speech were a never-ending source of amusement for some of my Yankee friends.

Once I was having a conference call with two lawyers whose offices were literally on Wall Street there in New York. We were going over some deal points when one of them asked if I had an answer on one particular issue we had discussed the week before.

I earnestly responded that I had not found the time to investigate the matter but, “I’m fixin’ to do it later today.” Both of them spontaneously began laughing.

That evening I told my youngest daughter that I would give her a dollar every time she caught me saying that expression. (Sorry, Walker Percy.)

Let’s just say her business was pretty good for a while.

But back to Paul Greenberg’s “midwestern” description of our beautiful Northwest Arkansas area. Has he never walked our lovely downtown square complete with the Confederate memorial honoring our own James H. Berry, who after the Civil War went on to become a U.S. senator and governor of Arkansas? Hey, it’s got a water feature, for goodness sake. Top that, Little Rock!

Then there is Monte Ne Inn, where if there is better fried chicken served in Arkansas in a distinctive Southern atmosphere, I have never found it.

Yes, our area has had a huge influx of people from all over the United States thanks chiefly to Wal-Mart, but for the most part, they have adopted the friendly, sociable ways of their predecessors. Of course, Margaret Mitchell once wrote that Yankees were “pretty much like Southerners except with worse manners, of course, and terrible accents,” but I don’t really ever see that.

However, it was recently announced that the new Bentonville West High School mascot will be the Wolverine. School Board member Grant Lightle was quoted in the news saying that he liked the choice because it is also the mascot of the University of Michigan and “stealing a page from their book is not a bad thing.”

Ouch!

OK, Paul, next visit to Bentonville, we will go to Monte Ne, and I’m buying.

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Sey Young is a businessman, husband, father and longtime resident of Bentonville. This commentary originally appeared April 3 in the Benton County Daily Record.