southern living with gardens and guns

First saw this magazine while waiting for a flight out of Gulfport, MS this past March.
My wife came back from her v. short stroll (not a big airport) laughing.

She assumed it was a joke at first, some kind of satirical publication, but discovered this was not the case.

http://gardenandgun.com/

Garden and Gun is a magazine that celebrates the soul of the New South. Southern culture, arts, food, hunting, etc.
I'm not sure where the New South is, or what they did with the Old south.
I know that old new york was once New Amsterdam, but that's off-topic.

The magazine has gorgeous photography, and decent writing, and is aimed at the wealthier end of the new south, the new south that quail hunts and cares about hand crafted wood kayaks and art exhibits and such.


But damn, couldn't they have come up with a title for the magazine that wasn't so close to punchline for a southern-stereotype joke?

Southern Living magazine is less obvious of a punchline, unless you're not from the south, and lived there for a period fo time, then fled back to the north.
like....me.


We lived in the deep south for a couple of years, and still visit multiple times a year.
I recall sitting in my converted chicken coop of a rental house, in the middle of nowhere MI, discussing the move with family members.
"how different can it realy be down there, all bullshit aside?"

So we moved, and quickly found out.
Again, not sure where the New South is, or what designates it as "New", but I'm pretty sure I moved to the old south...the really old south.

a week after we moved, we caught a free concert sponsored by the local modern rock radio station. Collective Soul at the gulf coast coliseum.
the attendees looked just like the friends we left in the north, at first.
Until a heavy set woman in a tube top climbed up on the shoulders of her skinny boyfriend, and started waving the confed. flag over her head, screaming " whoo hoo! whoo hoo!" over and over and over.

That was our first big clue that things were different.
A few nights later, we were harassed by local law enforcement for having glass containers on their litter-strewn beach, after we had fireworks shot at us by a fun-loving family celebrating the 4th, nearby.
we apologized for our error, and said we'd leave. He heard our lack-of-accent, and asked where we were from, with suspicion in his voice.
We told him, then asked him about the fireworks, he said that there was no law against fireworks, just glass containers, and mentioned that the dog wasn't allowed on the beach, either.

There were other dogs on the beach, of coruse.

While we lived down south, the state in which we were residing, was discussing the possibility of upping the age of consent from 13 to 16.
logic being that doing so would decrease the # of teen pregnancies.
I don't remember the proposed change passing.

The casual use of (to my northern ears) inflammatory racial slurs never ceased to shock me.
"which one of the _________ hit you with the forklift?" my white dock foreman asked me after I got sideswiped by a forklift that was not entering and exiting the warehouse door in the middle, as he should have been.

The same guy was sitting on the tailgate of his truck an hour later, eating lunch with the forklift drivers.

The guy that sold me my work boots had "reb" tattooed on his left ring finger. Yep, he was married to the rebel flag.

I can recall with clarity having lunch at Chimneys, a water-front seafood restaurant on stilts, when CNN anounced best and worst states to live in.
MS was 49th best to live in, and to raise kids in.
Thank god for Louisiana.

I could go on and on, and have done so in the past. Some of the stuff's just crazy funny, like news articles post-hurricane George about gator farmers calling on sherrif's dept to help them round up gators that had gotten loose and what I imagined their response to be.

But for every humorous moment, every cool new experience like gigging for flounder or scuba diving, every pleasant realization that folks tended to talk to each other more, and life was slower paced in a good way, there are three stories like the ones I related above.


So that's what Southern Living means to me, and I'd pay to read THAT magazine, instead of the one that gives you recipes for rolls that explode...

http://www.southernliving.com/southern/foods/tr_recipes/article/0,28012,605096,00.html

On the other hand, I'm the kind of guy that would try that recipe, in a safe environment, just to see what would happen...