Dear Reader:

Officially summer arrived yesterday morning at 11:54 a.m.- right before lunch. Under “Proud to be a Southerner” one southern attribute lets us know when summer starts in the south without having to wait on any ole’ summer solstice to tell us.

“I am proud to be from the South-where tea is sweet and accents are sweeter; *summer starts in April; front porches are wide and words are long; macaroni and cheese is a vegetable; pecan pie is a staple; Y’all is the only proper pronoun; chicken is fried and biscuits come w/ gravy; everything is darling and someone is always getting their heart blessed. Have a good day y’all!”

To this day I still can’t go anywhere in Summerville (or even Charleston) without someone recognizing my voice…due to my mixture of upcountry twang mollified slightly by four decades of low country living.

My former students, now with their families, literally turn around in a grocery line and call up “Is that you Ms. Dingle?” I’d know your voice anywhere.” 

I used to be offended somewhat but these days “I’m as proud as punch” to be from the south…down or up…high or low. The low country linguistics are slowly intermixing with a national and international culture… as more people move south to avoid the long northern winters…and we are starting to get more “strangers” from foreign countries due to new industries and technology.

Charleston, also, has the dubious distinction of winning the most popular vacation destination annually…. so people come to see for themselves and unfortunately stay. We are outgrowing ourselves continuously these days.

Sadly…at some point…(at the rate we are going)…the southern accent will just be a memory….no longer a reality. Now that I have been gone a long time from the upper South Carolina and North Carolina short vowels’ twang country…I notice it even more with my remaining family there.

If a niece or nephew calls…I am always Aunt “Backy” ….the southern short vowel twang is alive and well in the rural areas of upper South Carolina and eastern North Carolina…my original childhood dwellings.

This year *summer didn’t start in April…in fact April was downright delightful…even with Easter arriving almost at the end of it…Easter Sunday was cool and comfortable. We should have known it was too good to be true to last long.

May arrived…hot and dry…there were no more, literally no more, April showers and the poor May flowers started burning up in the gardens. I have never watered the garden as much as I did in May.

Local meteorologists watched as temperatures rose above 100 degrees for four days in a row in late May breaking all kinds of records….while also recording the on-going makings of a serious drought… that we are still in at present.

These days the talk in lines waiting to check out in grocery or department store  is usually about the weather….everyone wants fall to come earlier and earlier….instead it seems to arrive later and later. We might as well face reality…our southern summers are becoming the longest season of the year.

So until tomorrow…we might as well dust up on our southern “hot” expressions because it looks like summer is here to stay…for a long time. If I was a fashion designer…I would get my company to start making southern clothes for hot weather year round.

“It’s hotter’n blue blazes. Is it hot enough for ya? Man, it’s hot as all get-out! It must be 90 in the shade. This one’s gonna be a scorcher. You could fry an egg on the sidewalk.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

The refreshing rain (in the form of a summer thunderstorm late yesterday afternoon)  perked up all the plants and flowers.

*Remember how I mentioned if you took close-up photos of blooms you had a great chance of discovering life within the bloom. Now let’s play a form of “Where’s Waldo…Flower Style.” Who can find the insect in  one of the following blooms and what is the insect? 🙂

*Click on the photos to enlarge them if you need in your search! 🙂