View Full Version : In praise of Southerners I met this year
I just wanted to let everyone that I hiked GA and NC on the AT this year. As someone who lives in the North I can honestly say many people chided me about hearing Banjos playing Deliverance and running for my life along the trail. Most of the negative things I heard about the south came from people who had not been there.
THEY WERE WRONG!
I want anyone from the north who has any hesitation about being on the AT in the south to know everyone I met in the south was very nice and helpful. When I told people I hitchhiked in GA and NC some people actually gasped! Once I was picked up by a very nice couple who let me off right at the hostel and charged me NOTHING. Another time I had no idea how I was going to get back to the trail so I just started walking and thinking I'd figure it out. At a red light someone asked if I wanted a ride to the trail. He drove me out to the trail AND gave me some left over Mountain House meals he had left over from his last backpacking trip. There was even one time when I was hurt and knew I needed to get to a hospital. I made it to a road and saw nobody. I sat there not knowing what I was going to do and a guy from the south drove up and asked me if I needed a lift into town. What a Godsend. I even spent hiking a few days with a guy from Tennessee who was a lot of fun!
Sooooo....if given a chance to go back to GA and NC on the AT I would go knowing I'll probably be meeting some good people and making some good friends. Next year I'm doing VA, TN and WV.
Refreshing. Of course, I know this is true as I live "down South". Glad you had a fun experience and, "ya'll come back real soon".
ChinMusic
08-08-2011, 14:24
I have NEVER known anyone concerned with hiking in GA/NC...........none. I find it odd that you once took those stereotypes as serious. Glad you have come around......
southpaw95
08-08-2011, 14:27
I was born and raised in Virginia and I have roamed these hills for most of my adultlife and have only heard banjos at some mighty fine bluegrass festivals and front porches. Also ,rest assured that you won't hear anybody squealing like a pig either.
Enjoy the South and everything it has to offer.
Badspeller
08-08-2011, 14:46
I moved to Tennessee two years ago and I have found that the Southerners I know are all incredibly nice and friendly people (even nicer than Mormons) The South is a great place. Yall come on down and hike a spell.
WingedMonkey
08-08-2011, 14:58
Why don't you hush, before all them damn Northerners come down here.........Opps, too late.
ChinMusic
08-08-2011, 15:02
I just gotta remember to taste my tea before ADDING sweetener............
They like it when I order grits. They cringe when I ask for brown sugar.
hikerboy57
08-08-2011, 15:06
Why don't you hush, before all them damn Northerners come down here.........Opps, too late.
I thought west palm beach was in brooklyn.Im guessing you have more native new yorkers than floridians as neighbors:sun
WingedMonkey
08-08-2011, 15:11
I thought west palm beach was in brooklyn.Im guessing you have more native new yorkers than floridians as neighbors:sun
We should have put up that border fence 100 years ago. They told us they only wanted to visit.
ebandlam
08-08-2011, 15:17
A few years ago I had an opportunity to work with a really nice guy from the rural TN.. He would wear overalls to work (he was a computer technician), carry his lunch in grocery bags, went hunting almost every weekend during hunting season, .. I had taken my daughter (who at that time was about 4) to work one day and she very gently asked him almost in a quiet whisper "are you a hilly billy? My jaw dropped in sheer mortified embarrassment. Before I could say anything, the gentleman very calmly said "Sweetheart, I wish I had the privilege to call myself a hillbilly - so no I am regular country boy" Rest of my team members were on the floor laughing.. To this day I can't help but recall this episode whenever I hear people make disparaging remarks about Southerners..
BTW: I grew up in New York City...
southpaw95
08-08-2011, 16:38
Hey "That Guy"
If you are lookin' for a TRUE Virginia/Southern experience, while hiking through Catawba, I highly recommend stopping at The Homeplace Restuarant. An old farm house with some of the best family-style home cookin' anywhere.
I just hope you ain't one of them 'vegetarian types' that complain about having a little ham in their green beans.
Enjoy!
Thatguy expressed my sentiments exactly. I went from Amicalola Falls to the Smoky Mountains back in June and found the locals to be really nice people. One local girl at a road crossing even ripped the stitches on the webbing holding her hip-belt buckle in place on her own backpack in order to give me her buckle after I told her that mine had broken. I tried to stop her, but she told me that there was no outfiltter around and that she could always order another one. It was almost enough to resore my hope in humanity :)
Feral Nature
08-08-2011, 18:20
For me, going to Georgia is simply traveling east. ;)
Rain Man
08-08-2011, 18:21
You Yankees are gonna make me tear up here purdy quick like!
Rain:sunMan, born-and-raised in Powdersville, South Carolina
P.S. I lived in Greenwich Village (that's Manhattan, New York City) for a year of grad school and found folks to be very nice.
.
hikerboy57
08-08-2011, 18:21
why does it surprise so many to find out that people are nice?we've become such a calloused, cynical society, we seem to forget that by and large, the world is a warm friendly place, and most people will help someone in need.Im sure thee are plenty of southerners that found the same to be true when they made their way up to yankee country.In NY, all from the south but Braves fans are welcome!
@Southpaw 95
I'm not a vegetarian and am looking forward to VA next year. I will check out the Homeplace Restaurant. Thanks.
I also wanted to mention there were MANY trail angels in GA & NC. I met people who had packs filled with apples, extra water & even sandwiches for the sole purpose of giving them to the hikers. It's these experiences that makes hiking this trail so special.
Trailbender
08-08-2011, 18:39
I have lived in TN all my life, but on my thru, at least in towns close to the AT, I found everyone I met in the north to be open and friendly as well. I treated people with respect, and didn't have any expectations about what "the north" was going to be like.
Trailweaver
08-09-2011, 01:00
I'm always amused when a northerner is surprised at how "civilized" and "nice" we southerners are. We're known everywhere for our hospitality. . . stands to reason it wouldn't end at the trail. Not only that, but many of us are educated as well!
Whenever I've traveled north, I catch people by surprise by basically being myself, and sometimes I speak to strangers. This isn't done (aparently) in the north, and people either think you're crazy or that you're going to ask them for something (money?). I just like to meet folks and talk to them. I always wonder why they're so suspicious.
Glad you had a good experience here. Pass it on. I hope that if/when I make it to some of the northern states I will be treated as well as we generally treat visitors here. It does make life easier, doesn't it?
Kaptain Kangaroo
08-09-2011, 07:24
Ha ha.... You're all Northerners from my perspective ! :D
G'day from the real South (hemisphere that is !)
I found the locals to be friendly & helpful the entire length of the trail
Feral Nature
08-09-2011, 13:46
I'm one of those talk-to-everybody types myself!
vamelungeon
08-09-2011, 16:54
James Dickey, who wrote the novel Deliverance and who appears as the sherrif at the end of the film, was a southerner as is Burt Reynolds but that film did a huge disservice to southerners in general and the people of southern Appalachia in particular by creating and perpetuating false negative stereotypes. I have the novel and a copy of the movie and enjoyed both but it seems a lot of people don't realize they don't accurately portray the people of Southern Appalachia, no more than the novels of Stephen King portray the culture and people of Maine. The movie was filmed in the same part of the Georgia mountains that created the Foxfire series of books, and you can gleen a lot more factual information from the latter and learn more about southern Appalachian culture and people than from Dickey's novel or Reynold's film.
ChinMusic
08-09-2011, 17:00
James Dickey, who wrote the novel Deliverance and who appears as the sherrif at the end of the film, was a southerner as is Burt Reynolds but that film did a huge disservice to southerners in general and the people of southern Appalachia in particular by creating and perpetuating false negative stereotypes.
I forgot about that, good point. Many folks are very influenced by movies. Example: Far too many got their history from Oliver Stone.
Having done long-distance hiking in many states, all across the Country, I can honestly say that the caring and helpfulness of all of them was one of the biggest positives that I learned about this Country. By far, most folks went way out of their way to help a stranger.
We do live in a great land, and I'm looking forward to a bicycle trip in the next couple of years to areas not usually traveled by person power. I have no doubt that the people I meet will live up to the experience I've had in the rest of the Country. I have come to believe that this is a Human trait, not confined to any one region.
It is a reassuring thing to learn.
WingedMonkey
08-09-2011, 17:28
James Dickey, who wrote the novel Deliverance and who appears as the sherrif at the end of the film, was a southerner as is Burt Reynolds
Not sure how "Southern" Burt Reynolds is when not acting. He was born in Lansing Michigan, moved to Palm Beach County when he was 10 and went to high school here with my parents. He use to say in interviews that he was from Waycross Georgia, he stopped using that story later in life. Maybe going to college at Tallahassee made him feel more "Georgia"
:sun
His feet first hit the ground in Michigan, that makes him a Yankee. I didn't make the rules.
Feral Nature
08-09-2011, 17:56
His feet first hit the ground in Michigan, that makes him a Yankee. I didn't make the rules.
Yes, he's a yankee.
The Bandit is a yankee, that's terrible, and not even good and terrible
WILLIAM HAYES
08-09-2011, 21:48
us southerners like yankees as long as they dont overstay their welcome
vamelungeon
08-09-2011, 23:01
Yes, he's a yankee.
As I recall from my time there, Texans consider anyone not born in Texas to be a Yankee. True?
Destiny2012
08-09-2011, 23:08
Everyone I met in the south were great. The misconceptions about them are truly sad.
Feral Nature
08-09-2011, 23:34
As I recall from my time there, Texans consider anyone not born in Texas to be a Yankee. True?
Yes, there are Texans and there are yankees. I don't make the rules!