I Love Where I Live....but

I've heard the prejudices about people from the South. I've seen TV portray Southerners as less than glamorous. It's frustrating when I see or hear such generalizations of people from the South. Because some of "us" are not like you see on TV. Some Southerners bathe on a regular basis, drive vehicles that do not require a ladder to get into, do not have donkeys in our back yard, do not hunt and have animal heads for decorations and some of us even have fairly decent speaking abilities. Now, with that disclaimer, let me just tell you what has happened in my little corner of the world. Last weekend, gas prices soared as the hurricane threatened the supply of gas. Around my area of Tennessee, many people panicked and went to the gas station and not only filled up their vehicles but also took gas can after gas can with them to make sure their other "vehicles" would have gas. I didn't get caught up in this madness as I had plenty of gas. Some gas stations ran out of gas last weekend but many still had plenty. And as the week went on most gas stations had gas again. Around my mom and dad's area, they were out of gas at most places for the whole week. Again, in my little community all was ok. I assumed that everyone had regained their senses and filled up on Tuesday and by Friday had less than a half of a tank. But since I do courier work, I use a lot of gas. But again, I thought all was OK. Friday night my girls and I had dinner at my parents house. Then we headed out with my parents for ice cream. What do we see? LINES OF PEOPLE GETTING GAS! AGAIN, this weekend. WHAT? I laugh as there's 50 or more cars at this tiny station. But on my way home, I now have less than a quarter of a tank of gas and it's going down quickly. NO problem, I think. Oh that was wrong of me. You see now my little community has no gas. I drove out the little gas I did have looking for gas. I talked to my friend the same night and tell her about my little excursion with no luck finding gas. At 7:30 Saturday morning, her husband calls to inform me that Krogers now has gas. His wife is there and there's about 7 people in each line. I wake up my kids and off we go to get our treasured fuel. And we made it. We waited for about 30 minutes(I shouldn't have laughed at those 50 people in line last night)and I happily have a car filled with gas now.
So what does my southern roots have to do with this? First, I look around at the vehicles in line at Krogers this morning.....BIG trucks requiring umpteen gallons of gas. People buying gas for their 15 John Deere mowers sitting in their yard. People buying gallons of gas for their 4 wheelers, go karts and motorcyles. It made me think: is the mockery on TV and in comedy routines, even on internet forums, correct? Do I live in hillbilly hell? Well, maybe....maybe there's one too many monster trucks in the area. Maybe there's a few too many homes with broken down cars or lawn mowers sitting around....and that part of my southern heritage, I don't like so much. But over all I love where I live. I see that most people are kind to one another and care about each other. I see hospitality and generosity on a regular basis. And there's definitely more good than bad in my hillbilly hell!!
But people....please stop panicking over the gas situation. Please do not think it's necessary to put gas in that van in your yard that has not started since 1982. And please remember that you can only use one of those 15 lawn mowers at once. And by the time the gas in that one mower runs out, there will be more gas for the others. So don't put gas in all of those mowers and leave me and others without gas in our cars....you know the ones that actually start and we use for work and school. And I believe you will be ok if you miss one weekend of 4 wheeling....seriously, it will not leave you in need of years of therapy. And finally, please do not pull up next to me at the gas station and look at me as if you're going to run me over. I realize your truck is big enough to block the sun from the entire parking lot and my car looks like a Hot Wheels car....but I'd rather not have my kids in therapy because you look at us like we're your next victim. Because just remember that your monster truck probably gets 8 MPG while my Hot Wheels car gets 33 MPG!! So if you try to run me over, you'll have to catch me and I'm sure you'll run out of gas long before I do!!