I was born about as far into Yankee territory as one can be.  In fact, the Wisconsin accent can most easily be described as the twin brother of the Canadian “aye”, don’tchaknow?  Despite all of this, there is something in me that is decidedly southern.  And though I am a papist through and through, the sounds and sights of the South have felt increasingly like home to me over the past few years.  It’s simplicity, Thoreau-like connection with the land, hospitality, down-to-earth attitude, and emphasis on the dignity of the common man make it, at least in my eye, a place set apart as if a sanctuary on this earth.

It’s hard to put into words how and why the South stirs my soul as it does. Certainly a large part of my admiration is tied up in history.  I identify and empathize thoroughly with the Southern attitude and its glorious rise and brave stand in the American Civil War.  It is unfortunate that this needs to be said, but I am undoubtedly most modern in my outlook on race relations.  I am not (and have never been) a bigot of any kind.  The Civil War was fought over state’s rights and a kind of libertarianism so rightfully concerned with subsidiarity.  I, as an American, and given the current state of politics, feel it is necessary to continue to push toward a more Confederate (in the simplest sense of the word) view of American political relations between the local and federal government.  Again, I do not condone slavery.  Many abolitionists supported the South and many Southern generals and politicians believed abolition would come to the South quickly after a Confederate victory.

Aside from the politics, the music has been key in my understanding of the old South.  Whether you’re talking about bluegrass, old time music, or Appalachian mountain music, it is much like a time machine, taking us right into life in the mountains of West Virginia or the deep woods of Kentucky.  In the music you can hear the land and man’s troublesome love affair with it.  It’s quite real.  It’s bleak.  It’s joyful.  It seems so honest to the human experience.  There is something to be said for its connection with Irish folk music.  Perhaps the reason that it speaks to me so deeply is that, like myself, it has Irish blood and an American heart.  Suffice it to say, it makes me feel deeply patriotic for the first time in my life.  Modern America is something I take no pride in.  The old American South is entirely different.  I said before that the old South is unfortunately so closely linked to Protestantism, but in a world so apostatized, perhaps the old South is closer to the spirit of the Catholic religion than anything in recent American memory.

Much of my young adult life (in retrospect) has been centered around my unconscious drive to understand what “home” is.  And a key part of that question is the quest to find your own home.  So far, it seems to me that I have discovered one thing.  The center of what makes home is people and a way of life.  The geographical space, however, is somewhat important as well.  We, as humans, have our being influenced not just by the abstract, but by the physical as well.  As we are both spirit and matter, so does the matter of the world, the ground upon which we toil and trod, impact and change us as human beings (merely by the fact that we toil and trod upon it).

I’m not certain that the South is where I belong.  Certainly the old South is gone forever.  The modern South is certainly closer to that old land than anywhere else on earth, but I would guess that much of what had made it so special has leaked out and blown off into the wind like the ashes of those men who made it.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I will be moving to southern Indiana for at least the next half year or so.  This is a place less than an hour from Kentucky.  It is not the heart of the South, but it is perhaps more southern than midwestern all the same.  The accents and prevalence of cornbread are evidence enough of that.  I have joked that I’d like to have a bluegrass band play at the beginning of our wedding reception.  My fiance just laughed (perhaps, as something like a southerner, she doesn’t get the Yankee fascination with the South), but told me we could do that if I wanted.  I’m not sure anyone else would get it, but I’d love it all the same.  Maybe we’ll be lucky enough to move up into the Blue Ridge Mountains of West Virginia.  Maybe not.  The one thing I know is that this music is important to me in a way that all of my favorite hipster bleeps and jangles could never be.  When the banjo and fiddle come together, the angels that watch over America sing.