zzrmark

​​​​​Agreed, however you are north of me, conversely I am south of you, despite the fact that you are in the Deep South and I happen to reside in the Great Swamp south of the Deep South. Ergo, you are a Southerner but a northerner to me but not a Northerner in the sense that a Derbyshire man is to a Devonian Southerner. Nothing to be confused about there!

EDIT: I'm not quite sure what the ''struggling to understand' bit is about, I think you put me right on the defined area of the Deep South about four years ago, perhaps you are mixing me up with someone else?

caretaker

The good thing about the deep south is you can go to the stock car races with your sister and share the same spit cup.
The House Of Bamboo : Are You A Northern Bastard?

caretaker

Pulaski

The South and "Deep South" are different. Alabama and Mississippi are Deep South, and I believe Louisiana. I have heard that Georgia may also be considered to be Deep South. I don't think SC is, and I know NC is not Deep South.

I find the whole north-south thing a bit disconcerting as, coming from Yorkshire, I am a northerner, just not an American one.

Hotscot

I'm in SoCal.
More South than this is another country.

caretaker

Look at it this way... Hadrian's Wall and Watford Gap (or Manchester according to some), correspond to the Canadian border and the Ohio River/Mason-Dixon Line. I'm aware of the cultural differences (I fish with men from Leeds and from Bristol, Bournemouth and London, worked and drank with Novocastrians, Mancunians and Scousers [some of these last were and are dear friends]), and have known (and am related to) Americans from all over the country. In the south-eastern US, where the Deep South starts is not necessarily at Memphis or Charlotte or Atlanta or Montgomery, but often just 100 miles or less away from any city. From where you are and where I am, the concept of North and South have differing perspectives. My friend who worked for about 30 years running the Zipper for Royal American Shows and then Conklin all over the US and Canada, and towards the end of his career wintered in Florida doing ride maintenance in the off-season, has maintained that the further south you go the dumber people get. All I could say was "No South, no Faulkner."

NYer

Since when is Florida not the south? As someone pointed out, it fought for the Confederacy. Lewis Powell/Paine, who attempted to assassinate Seward, was from Florida, lol.

Now, it is true that southern Florida has its share of northeasterners who have changed the politics and cultural norms but the Panhandle & Northern Florida are still pretty southern in outlook and politics.

Hiro11

Yep, northern Florida = southern. Southern Florida = northern.

Various images I have of Florida:
- Endless ranks of $20MM, 50,000 square foot houses lining the shore in Naples
- Driving through tiny, rotting villages in the swamps thirty miles inland
- Chatting with gregarious, beefy, bright red, sweating British tourists in awful wrap-around sunglasses while standing in line for Minions Mayhem at Universal
- Incredible sunsets on the beach without a soul in sight on Captiva
- Seeing hordes of loud, middle aged, overtanned women with gravelly smoking voices getting blasted on cheap tequilla in Key West
- Seeing lightning hit the water miles offshore from the tops of sand dunes north of Daytona
- Seeing a hovel of a house outside of Deerfield Beach with a pristine 1979 Excalibur parked out front
- Taking my kids to Disney for the first time and watching them slowly fall apart in the heat and crowds, by 2:30 they were both crying
- Getting a VIP booth in a nightclub full of models and Italian millionaires in South Beach
- Watching geratric Canadian snow birds play street hockey in full hockey sweaters, complete with geriatric Canadian cheerleaders, in 90 degree weather on Canada day in a parking lot on Siesta Key
- Training with the Swedish national swimming team at the Hall of Fame pool in Fort Lauderdale and hitting the beach with them after practice. They came over to our hotel later, seriously fun people
- Decades ago, some tan, ex-banker friend of my grandparents with close cropped silver hair, aviator sunglasses and a sweater knotted loosely around his neck (in 80 degree weather) who lived in a high rise in Boca Raton who wouldn't invite us up to their apartment (too fancy for kids, you see) and made us eat a shitty lunch in the cafe downstairs. Even as a ten year old, I recognized him as a complete asshole.
- Offshore snorkling off of Key Largo in turbulent water and seeing Christ of the Abyss emerge out of the murk. I knew it was there but it still scared the crap out of me.
- At 19, getting blind drunk at a friend of mine's uncle's house south of Fort Meyers, and subsequently rocketing down a canal a few miles away in a ski boat one of the local kids owned at 40 mph shooting off fireworks at 1 AM and then escaping before the cops came

I think it's a great state.

Pulaski

Well that is certainly true, not 20 miles from Charlotte, in pretty much any direction, you can find yourself on back roads with small farms and scattered trailers, old barns with chickens pecking in the yard, and fields with a few cattle or horses. On one occasion I was driving home and found a cow in the road. I drove up to the farm house and spoke with the farmer's wife, and a few minutes later I was helping herd a cow back into the field. I don't recall ever getting involved in a bit of impromptu cattle herding when I lived in London!

dc koop

You can buy the Daily Mail in Publix or Winn Dixie. It couldn't get much better than thtat

Pulaski

So per Google the #1 <Florida news> story this afternoon is:

A 75-year-old man was attacked and killed by a large exotic bird he kept as a pet on his property in Florida, known to experts as the "world’s most dangerous bird," authorities said.

Marvin Hajos died from injuries suffered in the bizarre attack by a cassowary, a flightless fowl with knife-like claws that can stand up to 6 feet tall and weigh more than 100 pounds, according to officials.

carcajou

It's all Deep South, just different forms of it.

Georgia-Alabama-Mississippi-Southern Louisiana-Northern Florida are a kind of "Lower South." They are culturally (and in a lot of ways economically) distinct from the "Upper South" of the Carolinas, Virginia, and Tennessee. The Upper South is no less "Southern" than the Lower South.

The Upper and Lower Souths do feel very different, perhaps you have had to live there like Pulaski to have noticed it.

Northern Louisiana is "Southern" but different still again, as with Arkansas, both are similar to Eastern Texas in culture and outlook . . . and by the way, Shreveport, of all places, used to be one of the nastiest gang cities in the country in the 1990s.

The South has benefited from the changing economy. Banking, tech and medical industry money has permanently and radically changed places like Charlotte, Raleigh-Durham and Nashville, and the expansion of the D.C. suburbs has also changed Virginia. That, of course, is all Upper South. Lower South places that relied on manufacturing (like Mobile and Birmingham - which used to be called "the Pittsburgh of the South") have not fared nearly as well. Jacksonville benefits from people who want to move to Florida but find Miami, Orlando and Tampa too crowded and expensive.

Atlanta has long been undisputed Capital of the South. It is also different now in that it has attracted a wide variety of Americans, instead of just young Southerners, to it. Southerners used to have a saying that when you died, to get to heaven you would have to connect in Atlanta first.

Pulaski

Hot off the presses a story posted just two hours ago: Gulfport man uses water pistol filled with his own urine to squirt neighbour!

caretaker

That's nothing. Florida will produce something remarkable before the sun comes up.

RICH

I lived in Gulfport when I first arrived 15 years ago. Got married there too. Kind of Hippy vibe there. Not been there for a few years (its a city, but really a small neighborhood of St Pete)

Meanwhile, 12 good Florida folks found Jonchuck guilty today. https://www.tampabay.com/news/pinell...oebe-20190416/