MVC-010L Originally uploaded by caramaria.

One day I shall write a novel, completely fictional (cough, cough,) about a young woman who moves to the South after graduating from a university in New England. The work will follow her through her twenties as she makes friends and falls in love, and will highlight some of the most notable events from life down there in North Carolina, and will be narrated by an elderly and unnamed observer who spends most of his time sitting in a rocking chair on his front porch, watching the pickup trucks drive by, lifting dust off the gravel road, and he'll say:

"When she come down here in these parts ain't nothing 'bout the South she knowed. She ain't know 'bout no dumplins and she ain't know 'bout no sweet tea. Well, one day she was wandering over thar at that thar farming festival and my cousin Jimmy told me that he said to her, 'Hey girl, get up on this here horse' and she did. And she petted that big horse named Bob and she said, "Thanks. I love horses." Now Jimmy, he don't care none for Northerners, and that girl had been thinking that she'd done had about enough of the 'Southern culture,' that's what she said, but she did certainly love that horse Bob! Now Jimmy, he's one that gets to huntin' each fall and sometimes sips back on those bottles cousin Tommy's been brewin down thar since way back when we was just youngins, but he does like to bring them big horses out at the fairs and such. She just loved that horse. And that's when she got to thinkin' 'It's not so bad here,' she said in her own mind. She thought that if she up and done left it down here, she right might miss it someday."