The good ole boys drive big pickup trucks with big dogs riding in the bed. The dog is leashed to the inevitable anodized aluminum tool box. The tool box is empty. It’s just there for looks. From time to time it’s used as a beer cooler.

The dog, being leashed to the truck, can’t jump out and run away even though he wants to. In a head-on collision the dog is thrown out and hanged. The good ole boy, if he isn’t mangled too badly, gets out and checks the damage. Seeing the dog hanging off the side of the truck, the good ole boy reaches back into the cab and gets the shotgun. He then has a fit of road rage and says to the other driver, alive or dead, “Ya’ll dun kilt mah dawg. Ahm ah goin’ ta have ta keel you”.

36 illegal Mexican aliens live in a four-room house. They all drive to the pickup point in a van. They only make one trip. The ones that speak English won’t do so in front of a gringo. They all have a letter from their boss telling the bank to cash their checks. Sometimes the boss has to go to the bank with them. Sometimes that doesn’t work either.

The Confederate flag is the primary choice for decorating. It is always the centerpiece. Everything else has to match the flag...or not. It’s also the number one choice for tattoos, men and women alike. It is always flying from the back of the pickup truck with the soon to be dead dog in it.

Grits go with, and on, everything. Grits is ground up corn that gets boiled. By itself, it’s inedible. Something has to be put in it. Butter, sugar and gravy are the main choices. It also gets poured over shrimp and steaks, ruining the shrimp, steak and the grits.

Race relations in the South are very subtle. Whites don’t like blacks and blacks don’t like whites. The Mexicans can’t stand either of them and the feelings are returned. They have no connection outside of the job unless you count the muggings and pizza deliveries. If white people go to a black funeral they get seated in the far right corner. If black people go to a white funeral they get asked, “How did you know the deceased?”.

The New Years traditional meal is Hoppin’ John. It’s a mixture of field beans and greens. You don’t dare light a cigarette for a week afterwards. Too much danger of an explosion.

Explosions, though, are the main source of amusement in the South. Fireworks aren’t just for the Fourth of July. They’re for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, especially New Years when it becomes a sport, Easter and the Confederate Memorial Day.

The Civil War isn’t over in the South. Southerners are just taking a time-out. Southerners figure that, in due time, the Yankee invaders will tire out and leave. The average Southerner wants the Yankees to leave. Leave the South and leave their money behind...”and don’t come back, ya hear?”

Southerners are always gracious, courteous and polite no matter how insulting their actions are. They do everything with a smile. That hides the reality that they are a forlorn lot. There are three classes of people in the South. There are the wealthy, the dirt poor and the colored folk.

Southerners have overwhelmingly supported every war the United States has fought in with the exception of the Civil War- the War of Northern Aggression, the War For, or Of, Southern Independence. Whether that’s patriotism or their love of fighting isn’t clear.

They love cockfights. Seeing chickens wearing sharpened spurs and ripping each other to pieces gets right to the heart of true Southern spirit. Dog-fighting is a close second.

Of course, the true Southerner is no worse than a New England cheapskate Yankee, a Midwestern drunken cornhusker, a Southwestern cowboy wannabe or a California weirdo. The true Southerner is no match for a New Yorker much less a L.A. cuckoo bird. No Montana militia freak need to take a backseat to a Southerner’s habits.

Don’t want to talk about the Louisiana Bayou folks. They’re Southerners with a twist.