“His momma done raised him up right,” as they say.

At Backstreets on Friday night, the bartender said “Thanks for comin’ in, Beautiful,” when he handed me my tab. “Beautiful”?! Know how long it’s been since a complete stranger has used a pet name when addressing me? Loooong time. In fact, I gave him a very perplexed look in response because I had no idea what to say back to him.

Thursday, while helping Latice load boxes off of a platform and into her vehicle, a guy rolled down the window of his van and shouted, “Ya’ll are doin’ too much there” and sent his sidekick to our rescue. The boy (I say “boy” because he was not older than 20) arrived just as Latice was taking the last box from me, so there was nothing left for him to do. Still, I thanked him for trying and his response was, “Of course! I only wish I’d gotten here sooner.”

Those are just a couple of examples that illustrate a good ‘ole Southern value: Give special consideration to the ladies. On one hand, it’s seen as sexist and presumptive of women’s inability to take care of themselves. On the other hand, it can be enjoyed as a privilege of being born female. I take the latter attitude, thus have been enjoying the hell out of being out and about in Clemson.

Pssst! Photos.

Tags: Clemson, Southerners, values

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 7th, 2008 at 4:21 pm and is filed under family, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.