THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Monday, November 6, 1995               TAG: 9511040098
SECTION: DAILY BREAK              PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Column 
SOURCE: Larry Maddry 
                                             LENGTH: Medium:   64 lines

SOME SURE TIPOFFS THAT YOU ARE A SOUTHERNER

YOU KNOW you're a Southerner if:

When someone says ``yawl,'' you rarely think of a sailboat.

You awake on Christmas morning to the sound of firecrackers.

The main ingredients in your children's etiquette are ``yessuh'' and ``yessum.''

Summertime makes you think of honeysuckle and a June bug with a string on its leg.

You know where to catch the cleanest catfish.

You tend to swallow the seeds when eating watermelon.

You believe that the meal hasn't been invented that biscuits don't go with.

Iced tea in cans makes you flinch.

Marshmallows go onto your sweet potatoes only on special occasions.

There's a cruet of pepper vinegar somewhere in your pantry.

There's a flower from a funeral or marriage pressed somewhere in your family Bible.

You ever ate a biscuit with molasses on it for dessert.

You or someone you know sleeps in a bed with a canopy.

Someone has given you a gift of pecans from their tree in a paper sack during the past year.

You were grown before you learned there were ways to cook chicken without frying it.

One of your children is either named for a jewel or a flower.

You think of your third cousin as ``close kin.''

You believe a bean cooked without fatback ain't fittin'.

As a child watching the stars on a summer night, you were told that the Big Dipper contains gravy for grits or cornbread.

Your relatives tend to boast about the number of times they have either read or seen the movie ``Gone With the Wind.''

Some member of your family was either proposed to or courted on a porch swing.

You've eaten a Moon Pie chased with a Cheerwine soda.

You believe that heaven - when you get there - will smell like magnolias in the moonlight.

A mockingbird stole a ring or piece of jewelry from someone you know who left it on a windowsill.

When watching football played by teams you are unfamiliar with you tend to root for the one that sounds Southern, even if it's Southern Minnesota.

You have ever tried coaxing a doodle bug out of its hole with a tiny stick while chanting that the bug's house was on fire.

You have seen houses so covered with kudzu that all you could recognize was the chimney.

You wouldn't trade the pleasing sound of a baying coon dog for a shelf of Sinatra CDs. MEMO: I couldn't think of any more Southernisms, but I'm sure readers have

many that are better. If so, please fax me at (804) 446-2414 or write to

Larry Maddry, The Virginian-Pilot, 150 W. Brambleton Ave., Norfolk, Va.

23510.

by CNB