Something that has caught my attention in recent years is the myth of the South and my connection to it. I suppose it awes me in the way exotic cultures awe those silly Romantics. I do think it is a part of my upbringing. After all, Missouri seems to be a bridge from the dense almost Baroque world of the Old South and the Midwest, two quite different things. If you go to some places, you can see these makeuped women, ready and prepared with their lipstick and elvis plaques staring you down, Virginia Slims in tow. Yet there is also the figure of the rustic farmer, dusty John Deere cap perched on his tanned forehead, wearing those frayed overalls, bitching about the price of soybeans this year.
It's almost as though the river cuts it straight in half. Here's your backwoods extravegance on one side, your practical self effacing side upon the other. Even in my town, shoved right in between this mess, you will see the remnants of plantations mingled with sloppy little farm houses. Aren't these two dreams waiting to be destroyed? The farmers can barely keep up with the competition. Company owned farms are so much cheaper and put out a larger quantity. The plantation houses, well, that has been a long time. After all, I am from a city with one of the major black colleges of this century, or at least it used to be. It seems everything is dying here and no one wants to do anything about it. Ahh, decay, how Romantic!
Of course you have to realize I am wholly seperated from much of this history, or at least connected to a different one that is. My descendents did not arrive here until the latter half of the nineteenth century during the last wave of European immigrants. I can't say my desndants ever owned slaves or homesteaded really. They absorbed themselves into Missouri's wonderful little river valley, building up little farms along the way. Germans seem far too severe for the intensity of the South. their intensity is quite different however. Germans are known to go wholeheartedly into whatever they are given. Some Lutheran, some Caholic. But they are distinctly religious, not at all in the lax, typically Italian manner. In German eyes we are all doomed, but that doesn't mean you can't have a bit of fun.
Nonetheless, as you can see, the Southern culture is quite foreign to me in some ways. I suppose what fascinates me is the aura of decay hovering about it, as well as all the class and family struggle. All are parts of the human experience, no matter where you have lived, however there is a tradition of the Southern Gothic, which I think was most well described by the plays of Tennessee Williams. Indeed, a Missouri-born writer!
these are simply thoughts at the moment. What the Hell do they have to do with me? I haven't figured that part out yet.
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