A New Favorite Story

In graduate school, I learned that the American South has it's own. . .breed of writers.  Not in an identity-politics sort of way. 

But in a perfectly-understandable-once-you've-gotten-to-know-a-few-Southern-story-tellers sort of way. 

They use the term school.  The Southern school of writing.   But it's not anything like school.  These writers don't learn to write as Southerners.  They're just Southerners who write. 

And there is something about the way they use language and the way they tell stories that I just love.

***

I was once talking with my fellow grad students and a visiting writer and the subject turned to names.  This person had known someone with that unique name.  This other person had another. 

I offered up my best name story:  in high school, there was a guy who was an only child, and his parents named him after themselves.  The mother was Martha and the father was Juan and they named him Marijaun. 

I am not making that up.  Even the teachers called him "Weed." 

This visiting writer then said, after my story, "I'm from the South, so I've got this conversation won." 

I loved that sentence.  And I loved his writing from that point forward.  Yes.  Conversations can be
won.  When there are a bunch of story-tellers in the room, anyway.

He won it, too.  Claimed to know of a fellow named "Here Come Jesus in a Long White Robe."

"What did they call him for short?"

"Junior." 

This had been my favorite Southern story for the past 14 years.

***

I had the pleasure of driving a ways with a friend this past week.  Dawn is from North Carolina and she sounds like a peach. 

luuuuhv yew!

and

he showed his tayl. . .


I could listen to Dawn all day.  She is a funny story-teller, even when talking about serious things. 

And so she came to the topic of her grandmother who was a chain-smoker, though Dawn never knew it, she just knew they'd be out for dinner and Granny would go the bathroom for 45 minutes and come back stinking like a granny.

"Then one day, Granny was playing bridge.  I don't know what that's called when you get all 13 tricks--"

"A grand slam."

"So she got her grand slam, had her little cigarette, went to bed and never woke up."



I've got to say, this is my new favorite story from a Southern writer.