Southern Fried Manners

So, why is my blog called "Southern Fried and Tied Up?" Let me explain.  Despite the fact that I, like most people, prefer to do things when I want to and on my own terms, I really am all for norms and rules. They help to establish order and calm in a chaotic world. They give people with undiagnosed ADD a framework within which to bounce around. The problem comes with knowing how to balance between extremes. This is perhaps truest within the Southern culture.


You see, in the South, people run the gamut between extremes. You have your wide-open, wide-mouthed, yee-hawing, good-ole-country boy on one end of the spectrum, and your prim and proper, oh-so-refined, Southern belle or grand dame on the other end. What is considered polite conversation within the spectrum varies just as widely. Some swear like sailors while others speak with such gentility that it's as if they curtsy with their words.  Case in point, I was talking with a friend who brought up the “F-“ word. You know (looking from side to side and whispering)…”Fart”. My mother can’t stand that word. As she says, it is crude slang and other words can equally, and less offensively, be used. One could say, for example, poot or toot or pass gas.


Anyway, I remarked to my friend that sometimes I feel southern fried and tied up because of societal conventions such as those governing the use of words like “fart”. I quite liked my original expression—"southern fried and tied up"—because it is metaphorical of a larger pull and tug between being who you are versus who you are supposed to be, as dictated by society at large. It’s like the strain to breach the confines of a perfectly constructed cocoon that is all at once overwhelming, suffocating, and constricting while it is also warm, safe, comforting, and known. How does one navigate such a narrow passage and still feel unique?


As always, it comes down to balance. Balance between personal needs and the needs of others. Turns out it’s really not all about you or me and what either of us want. There is a bigger picture and still others to be considered. Here is where manners come into play. Manners have nothing to do with the individual who displays them but have everything to do with the recipient. Manners say “I respect you and your feelings”. The world certainly could use more of that.


Truth be told, I do let the “F-“ word, I mean “fart”, fly (no pun intended) every now and again but I also feel my Mom has a point. There is something safe and comforting in convention, in politeness, in gentility. Something that says the world hasn’t totally lost all redeeming value. Something that speaks of our better natures and our ultimate potential as a species. So, Mama, in harmony with Colossians 4:6, I will try to season my words with salt, making them palatable to those along the spectrum of society knowing that it can only contribute to the betterment of all.