Your story about the patriotism you experienced in the middle of a Food Lion is but one of the many reasons I’ve listed on my twitter profile @elginkid, “Oregonian by birth..Texan by choice”. There is truly something about the South that is unique, different and great.

I loved the comments about the funeral processions in the South. Until I moved to Texas in 1989, I had never observed such a thing. When I first saw people pulling off the road and stopping, I was surprised. I was talking about this with a North Carolina native who has always lived in the South and she was totally shocked that up north we don’t do those kind of things. I told her that her job at my funeral was to watch for any misguided “Yankees” who might not pull over and show me the appropriate respect and advise them that if they didn’t pull over, “I’d be back to haunt them”.

I enjoyed many of your posts. Great job!

And, get out of here! You were bloggin from way up there? I love you guys, but that terminal woulda been tha last thang on my mind!

And, Grits – I have been drinkin those Crystal Lights, & have fallen in love w/ the Hawaiian Punch, (sugar free and very sweet!) I just can’t force myself to drink water so much! Plus, those little packets are so easy to travel w/! fit right in the jeans pocket! ANY MORE SUGGESTIONS OUT THERE?? I don’t want to have to change my blog handle to “TWO-TON TESSIE”!

So please accept this generic Thank You So Very Much, and please apply it to you personally– yes, I do mean YOU, I see you ducking behind the Babybloomr sign up there! I can’t tell you how much your comments mean to me, I read them, re-read them, read them out loud to various family members and passersby– it feels very much like a conversation, and I do so enjoy talking with you.

I’m getting ready to go wake up the girls so we can pack up and get out of our lovely chalet and head back home. Talk to you guys later.

I love people who think honor, and courage, and doing one’s duty are a way of life! I love people who think freedom is so precious that they would risk their lives to keep it and/or to give it to someone else. I think they are very special human beings, and I’ll honor them in the grocery store or any other place the opportunity arises!

I’m SO proud to be a Southerner! Hence my user name. GRITS is supposed to stand for “Girl raised in the South” but in my case, it’s now “Granny raised in the South”.

DELIVERED, have you tried the little packs of Crystal Lite in your water? I hate water also but since I started having a problem with dehydration, I’ve started buying cases of the 16.9 oz bottles of water and adding Crystal Lite. You have to try a bunch of flavors to find what you like but most are pretty good. The Pink Lemonade really tastes like lemonade. I normally drink sweet iced-tea (I AM Southern after all) all day, thinking I was getting plenty of water, but was informed that the caffiene takes away the hydration advantage, or something dumb like that, so I try to add at least one bottle of water to my intake. :o)

My sister lost a lot just by doing a lot of walking and cutting back on fats. I gained after stopping smoking in ’95 because I had to have something in my mouth all the time, something crunchy like nuts, chips & candy which are not low calorie. :o) However, once I got over the addiction and no longer had to keep crunching something, it leveled off.

Good luck, don’t despair. Be proud!

I found you through the comment you left on Marty Kittrell’s blog, and I’m so glad I did. I thoroughly enjoyed your story about your visit to the Food Lion. It gave me chill bumps and made me very proud to be from the South (Vicksburg, MS), where things like that happen every day and we just take them for granted.

I look forward to reading more of your stories and hope you will visit my blog, too. You can find me at Southern Lagniappe (http://southernlagniappe.blogspot.com/).

Sincerely,

Janie

2) GristinNC: have no fear – you are not the only person to have trouble w/ that dadblasted password! And, NO! it is not a NC issue w/ us! (I heard some of ya’ll thinkin’ that!)

3) Fanastic pic! Was that really a shot from your chalet? WOW!

4) Is the cute curly-haired shoe guy w/such compassion married? =)
(couldn’t resist that one, sorry!) And, they sure do look a heck of alot better than those roller shoes!

5) I NEED HELP!!!!!!! YA’LL!!!! Ever since my deliverance from crack, alcohol & cigs, I have gained literally 50 lbs! I walk a mile every am b4 chasing 1st graders around for half a day, have cut out sodas, sugars, coffee, HATE WATER!!! Go to bed @ 9PM, rise @ 6AM. Am eating lowfat and low caloric foods, fresh stuff, ya know. Does anyone out there have any good , easy ideas for me? I have fallen in love w/ nuked apples for breakfast, along w/ bananas. Fig newtons are pretty good to me, and low in fat and sugars. Am trying to stay away from fried stuff, gravies, bread except whole wheat rye. WHAT TO DO!

I know that even if I do not get any responses, it felt real good to get that of my chest!

BTW, I actually emailed Cracker Barrel to see if they would build one in my town (Auburn, Calif.) because I was having withdrawals, but the closest one is in Arizona. I usually visit my sister in Lebanon in the fall to get my chicken and dumplings fix.

My hubs is waking up to a view like that every weekday at the southern outpost. He is working in Chattanooga (well, ya know, it’s the economic reality these days) and our rental place is on the next ridge over from Lookout Mt. I have pics on my blog but more on FB showing the fab sunrise. Don’t cha just love the wisps of clouds in the valleys below? I know I do. I’m glad you had fun.

I love your picture of the Smokies. Well I made it back home from Gatlinburg in one piece! Enjoyed it so much too! 10 more days of school! LOL

I reckon it wasn’t enough said, cause I need to say:I love you, Russ, Madi and Charlotte!

Oh my, Tori, I do believe that beautiful picture is of the mountains….when you posted it in Russ’ Group, I thought it was the ocean. Thought you had yourself a terrific invention…taking a long-range telescope picture of the ocean while up in them thar mountains. Okay, so I don’t see so good.

I am now reminded every day. We have a new national cemetery – The National Cemetery of the Alleghenies – just a mile from my house. I go by it every day on my way to work. The American flag is waving proudly; when it’s at half staff, I know there’s a funeral that day and I’m reminded to remember this soldier – whether old or young – who served.

I have an uncle, whom I never met, buried at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten. The Dutch, so thankful for the Americans for liberating them, adopt a grave of an American soldier. Each family tends the grave – flowers, flags, etc. – since we can’t. And this is passed down – the 2nd generation is now tending to my uncle’s grave. I’ve been in contact with this family; the lady’s family started this when she was just a teenager and she has passed this on to her daughter. My niece was there 2 summers ago; the first in our family to every visit. When they found out she was family, they treated her like royalty! What great people!

I’m like a mother hen at an airport. If I see soldiers in uniform (and most of them ARE kids), I try to speak to every one of them and thank them for serving.

And small airports are great. I fly into Fresno to go up to the mountains to see my Dad (Navy man, WW II – Pacific, USS Louisville). A voice will come on the PA system announcing a soldier’s name “Arriving at Gate___; please stand and thank him/her and welcome him/her home as he/she passes by” (There’s only one way in and out to the gates, so everyone will see this person). It is truly a scene to stop and watch and be thankful to be a small part of. I’m usually a blubbering mess by the time I get to the Hertz counter.

Did anyone happen to catch the HBO (I think) movie called “Taking Chance” with Kevin Bacon a couple of months ago? During the scene when he’s following the hearse for the 5 hour drive to Wyoming, and the truckers and cars fell in line with their lights on in this random-spur-of-the-moment funeral procession in the middle of nowhere, I teard up and said “That’s the America I know!”

May we never forget…

You Americans, particularly you Southerners, should be proud. Us English could learn so much from your genuineness, courtesy, friendliness, unashamedness (?), and patriotism. You live where people honour the heroes, where people still stop in respect when a funeral procession passes by, and where people go out of their way to help each other. What’s more, people openly ask God to Bless each other and your beautiful land. All of this and a sense of humour!!

So may I put my cynical,self-absorbed Englishness to one side and say a belated Happy Memorial Day to to you all and God Bless you and your country.

I am presuming that it was 3:00 when the silence was announced. I guess up their in them thar hills, you didn’t hear that the president called for a minute of silence to honor our fallen military.

I have a little story to share… It is tradition – well it’s just special to my mom to get flowers for her family’s graves (my grandparents and my two uncles – her whole immediate family). So I take her out to eat at a nice restaurant and then we head to the cemetery to put the flowers on the graves. Well, in my heart I just can’t help but look around at all the American flags on the military graves. In your heart you just can’t help but… well I just can’t help but glance at the graves and say a quiet “thank-you” to that stone or that grave for serving our country. That little trip always humbles me in that way – just for that second and forces me to remember them on this special day…(we did that on Friday – together)

So today I grabbed one of my sisters and stuffed her in the vehicle and we headed to another cemetery (just doing a little tombstone genealogy research) and as I approached the graveyard, I put on my turn signal to turn left into the grounds and I’m slowing up (waiting on on coming traffic) and this young punk comes up behind me laying on his horn and waving his arm (not to say hi!) and I just looked at him in my rear view and didn’t do or say anything aggressive in response to his actions — in my heart I truly said a prayer for him that he would soon know the respect of what a cemetery represents… loved ones no longer with us. A day like today and that cemetery was loaded with cars coming and going and that punk chose to act like that when I was only seconds from getting out of his way. If only the young would grasp that sooner!!!! I truly felt sorry for him representing our young today! [stepping down from soapbox – now]

I would have been weepy,too.
Russ and I were grinning (I think at each other) during ‘God Bless the USA’ the other night. Me– crying.
I was at the airport in Atlanta one time when a whole bunch of military people de-planed and I saw that whole hanger of weary mothers and jaded business men rise to their feet and start clapping as these kids (cause that’s what they were–kids) started moving through the airport. I was a bawling mess. Just filled my heart with pride and sadness and some kind of motherly thing that made me want to throw my arms around each of them. Which probably would have gotten me arrested.