Thats my point though, they're not far enough south to be the South. They are more West Virginia than Mississippi. They may think they're the South, but maybe they're just deluded. Fun fact, Kentucky was the last place to get indoor plumbing. Whenever I meet someone who says they're from Kentucky my first question is always can they read. Seriously, every time. Some get offended, some laugh. I always congratulate them if they can, its an accomplishment out there.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that rifling isn't going to significantly improve the ballistic qualities of an abnormally shaped potato.
Goes back to the Civil War. Kentucky was an important border state. Also a slave holding state. They shared many of the same attitudes as southerners. Only when the south marched into the state to claim it for the Confederacy did it drop its neutrality and go Union. A lot of that must be still held over there. Also, everyone from Missourah, I apologize in advance:
Why is it southerners e the ones who like re-inacting the Civil War? Do these people not realize that their ancestors... a) Lost? b) Fought for the wrong side?
Tennessee is definitely the south. A few of those guys last year claiming rape victims asked for it (Legitimate Rape, not Rape rape) were from Tennessee. Dude, even when they reenact it they can't fucking win. I'm guessing they only reenact the battles The Confederacy won.
Yea, I'm guessing they don't re-enact Sherman's March, apparently thats still a touchy subject down there.
I'm gonna have to go to bat for Kentucky here a little. Yes, a lot of the back country folk from there are rough, but the people of Louisville and Lexington are good people. The nicest people I've ever lived around. And they could read just fine. I didn't dare get into any political or religious debates with them because its pointless, but if you can see past all that, they are very decent people and they have a great sense of community and being neighborly. Something I have yet to see here in Houston or back home in West Palm. You get much worse people in West Virginia and the backwoods of the Carolinas.
I have never been to Kentucky, but I played quiz bowl in high school and two of the best schools that I played against were from Lexington (it was almost all Asians) and Louisville. The one from Lexington, Dunbar High School, has produced 3 or 4 Jeopardy! Teen Tournament winners.
A buddy of mine went to Dunbar and he was in fact on teen jeopardy. Smart kid but became this huge cocky asshole after even though he lost bad.
One of my college roommates was from Louisville and is one of the smartest people I know. His family is also freakish athletes. His Dad backed up Joe Montana at ND before transferring to UK, his brother played at Arkansas, and his sister is a Carrie Underwood look alike that danced at UK and was all over CBS NCAA tourney commercials. A bit overly obsessed with the St. X-Trinity football rivalry there. They are also incredibly southern in mannerisms, drawls, etc... and some of the nicest people ever. Also, the UK girls I met through said sister, and my buddy's UK alum wife, are foolishly hot. So at least Kentucky has that going for them amongst the toothless inbreds.
I sorta think of the geography as The South and The Deep South. They share many of the same traits, but the Deep South takes it further.
We have a bartender who is also the singer in the band 3 nights a week that is West Virginia Redneck he can't read very well and is not very good at that whole spelling thing, he wears a stars and bars welding hat when he bartends and during his breaks while singing, during the breaks he also chews skoal and until we demanded he use a spit cup he would spit on the floor. Until recently he had very racist tendencies and would say something about his dislike of "faggots" with regularity. As often happens with these things,recently due to a few complaints, the owner of the bar sent him a message to not say faggot on stage anymore, even during his favorite song, Theres a skeeter on my peter wack it off, therefore rendering the song worthless as the second verse is about a maggot on a faggot. Within a month of the homophobic slur ban his son eloped and married an African American girl. During a recent conversation with him, he was explaining his frustration with being censored, my response was, "Dude you sing a song called My Dicks To Big, and you curse more than anyone I have ever met on stage and constantly tell woman to show your their titties, you just can't say 1 word." He thought about it for a second and spit on the floor. Last week in an effort to bring the attention back to himself he announced a few times in one night that it was no longer acceptable to call him a redneck and that he was now only allowed to be referred to as an Appalachian American.
I went to college in southwest Virginia and later lived in various points in the south. Many I interacted with did not consider Virginia part of the south. I noticed most felt if it was north of where they grew up it wasn't the south. Additionally, folks who grew up in and rarely (if ever) left urban Atlanta, Charlotte, Mobile, etc would call me a cityslicker from the north. I grew up in Appalachia outside a rural coal town in southwest Pennsylvania...colloquially known as Pennsyltucky. We had the first day of deer season off from school and unless we had weeks of snow days our last day of school was the last Friday before Memorial Day. We preferred the moniker hillbilly over redneck. Instead of grits I grew up on cream of wheat. Looks very similar however tastes very different.
NASCAR is America's most popular spectator sport. I entirely don't get the fad, I mean entirely. I find the racing very dull unless a car is going 180 mph upside-down, and you have to mix with 150,000 assholes. Now, I'm sure quite a few of them aren't assholes, but there are quite a few of them who are. More than enough for me at least.
First, I've read this entire thread with a southern accent in my head. Couldn't help it, and it made the thread exponentially funnier. Second, as to Kentucky, yes it is a southern state. In fact, I'd argue that "southern" is more a state of mind at this point. Case in point: I live in a Podunk town in Northwest Indiana. Drive an hour north or so and I'm in Gary. Drive 45 minutes south and you'll swear you're in redneck heaven. Nothing but farm fields, tractors, and either "Don't tread on me" or "rebel" flags as far as the eye can see. These people consider themselves true southerners, despite the fact that they love about an hour outside Chicago, and they could drive to Canada in a day if they wanted. But ask them if they consider themselves northerners, and you'll be facing down a shotgun and an angry redneck wondering if he should make you Squeel to prove his red-neck credibility (but it totally wouldn't be gay, because "ain't no fags round here!"). Seriously, it's not so much "south vs north" anymore so much as it is "urban vs rural." Southern states have more a more rural feel than northern states, where big cities dominate. Another example is Illinois. A state as blue as the ocean, BUT only because of Chicago. The rest of the state HATES Chicago, and is redder than Nett's face when he sees a shitty Ballsack post (too soon?). That state is as rural and redneck as it gets, as long as you're outside a major city like Chicago, but NO ONE would consider Illinois a "southern state."
Count Pennsylvania into the "state of mind" bunch. It was fucking invaded by Robert E. Lee but truer words than "Philly in the east, Pittsburgh in the west and Alabama in between" were never spoken.
Just to clarify? neither clubbing with a shovel nor dunking in kerosene and setting alight is enough to instantly kill a cane toad. They were just stunned and half of them tried to hop away as I worked on my swing. Cane toads are an introduced pest that do enormous damage to local eco system and are very, very difficult to kill. It used to be a bit of a national past time to come up with creative ways to punish them for that fact. We're a bit more humane about things these days - but seriously, running over the little fuckers with a car won't reliably kill them.