The idea for a collection of Southern idiosyncrasies has been festering in my mind a long time. Growing up in the post World War II Baby Boomer generation with the cold war, civil rights and bra burning while maintaining normalcy would be anticlimactic. We were products of a changing world – and although we embraced the life we were given with determination and zeal we were stymied by the opposing forces we could not control. Our parents survived the Great Depression and World War II determined to create a better world. As their children we experienced a world so rapidly changing that the past did not seem relative. Sputnik scared us, Viet Nam gave us a voice, and political assassinations changed us. The tapestry woven by our lives did not offer us much faith in the goodness of mankind. We are different from our forefathers, but we try to hold on to customs that molded us into adults; we had to learn the value of tradition but we were blessed with a heritage that should be preserved.

Southern grit and charm are still alive, and my hometown, Tuscaloosa, is the perfect place to live. Seeking the traditions of Southern ways reveals the wisdom of time as we incorporate our rearing into a different world. We are the products of that wisdom. I believe it is better to be wise than otherwise.