posted 06-11-2005 07:23 AM         

1. That farm boy you see at the gas station did more work before
breakfast than you do all week at the gym.

2. It's called a "gravel road." No matter how slow you drive you're
going to get dust on your Navigator. Drive it or get the hell out
of the way.

3. The red dirt -- it's called clay. Red clay. If you like the
color don't wash your car for a couple weeks -- it'll be permanent.

4. We all started hunting and fishing when we were seven years
old. Yeah, we saw Bambi. We got over it.

5. Go ahead and bring your $600 Orvis Fly Rod. Don't cry to us if a
flathead breaks it off at the handle. We have a name for those
little 13-inch trout you fish for -- bait.

6. Pull your pants up. You look like an idiot.

7. If that cell phone rings while a bunch of mallards are making their
final approach, we will shoot it. You might want to ensure it's not
up to your ear at the time.

8. No, there's no "Vegetarian Special" on the menu. Order
steak. Order it rare. Or, you can order the Chef's Salad and
pick off the two pounds of ham and turkey.

9. Tea - yeah, we have tea. It comes in a glass over ice and is
sweet. You want it hot -- sit it in the sun. You want it
unsweetened -- add a lot of water.

10. You bring Coke into my house, it better be brown, wet, and served
over ice.

11. So you have a sixty thousand-dollar car. We're real
impressed. We have a quarter of a million-dollar combine that we
only use two weeks a year.

12. Let's get this straight. We have one stoplight in town. We
stop when it's red. We may even stop when it's yellow.

13. We eat dinner together with our families. We pray before we eat
(yeah,even breakfast). We go to church on Wednesdays and Sundays
and we go to high school football games on Friday nights. We still
address our seniors with "yes, sir" and "yes, ma'am," and we sometimes
still take Sunday drives around town to see friends and neighbors.

14. We don't do "hurry up" well.

15. Greens - yeah, we have greens, but you don't putt on them. You
boil them with salty fatback, bacon or a ham hock.

16. Yeah, we eat catfish, bass, bream and carp. You really want
sushi and caviar? It's available at the bait shop.

17. They are pigs. That's what they smell like. Get over
it. Don't like it? Interstate 85 goes two ways - Interstate 40
goes the other two. Pick one.

18. Grits are corn. You put butter, salt, and maybe even some
pepper on them. If you want to put milk and sugar on them, then you
want cream of wheat- go to Kansas. That would be I-40 west.

19. The "Opener" refers to the first day of deer season or dove
season. Both are holidays. You can get pancakes, cane syrup,
and sausage before daylight at the church on either day.

20. So every person in every pickup waves? Yeah, it's called being
friendly. Understand the concept?

21. Yeah, we have golf courses. Don't hit in the water
hazards. It spooks the fish and bothers the gators -and if you hit
it in the rough, we have these things called diamondbacks, and they're
not baseball players.

22. That Highway Patrol Officer that just pulled you over for driving
like an idiot -- his name is "Sir," no matter how young he is.

23. We have lots of pine trees. They have sap. It drips from
them. You park your Navigator under them, and they'll leave a logo
on your hood.

24. You burn an American flag in our state, you get beat up. No
questions. The liberal contingent of our state legislature -- all
four of them -- enacted a measure to stop this. There is now a
$2.50 fine for beating up the flag burner.

25. No, we don't care how you do things up North. If it is so great
up there why not visit a Northern state or stay there. And no, down
here, we don't have an accent, you do.