A Southern Welcome

 Moving to the mid‑South in 2011 was like stepping into a parallel version of America — familiar, but tilted just enough to make me feel like a tourist. As we drove into Millington, Tennessee, just outside of Memphis, a day ahead of the moving van, the landscape shifted from the corn and soybeans of the upper Midwest to endless fields of cotton. White bolls stretched across the horizon like snowdrifts that had somehow survived the August heat. Cotton bales sat in neat rows, wrapped in bright yellow plastic, looking for all the world like giant loaves of bread waiting to be delivered.

The houses fascinated me too — built right on top of the ground, as if the earth were warm enough to trust. No basements. No frost line. Just brick and siding resting on soil. And the roads — narrow, tree‑lined, shaded in a way that made every drive feel like entering a green tunnel.

But what struck me most were the churches and the Waffle Houses. In the Midwest, you'll see a church here and there. In Tennessee, you could find three before you finished a cup of coffee. And Waffle Houses? They multiplied like rabbits. You could practically navigate by them: turn left at the Waffle House, go two blocks past the next Waffle House, and if you reach the third Waffle House, you’ve gone too far.

Big, beautiful churches and sprawling acres of facilities that confirmed the South's claim as "the Bible Belt." And the Waffle Houses are a southern institution. Walk into a Waffle House and step back into the days of the small-town diner, with stools at the counter to sit and kibitz with the waitress, or grab a booth in the cozy confines. Watch the cook make your waffle or eggs behind the counter. You want coffee with that?

And then there was kudzu — the creeping, climbing, smothering vine that looked like it was plotting to take over the county. Trees, telephone poles, abandoned sheds — nothing was safe.

And armadillos — the South’s most confused little mammals. I’d seen them before, back when we lived in Branson, where they loved to wander into our yard at night and forage for grubs. By morning, the lawn looked like it had come down with a case of chickenpox. They never meant any harm; they were just hungry, armored little diggers doing what armadillos do.

In Tennessee, though, it was not unusual to see armadillos lying belly-up by the roadside. It became part of the Southern landscape, right up there with kudzu and Waffle Houses. Their little, armored bodies weren't enough to withstand the faster, deadlier automobiles. They were everywhere, poor things, and they never seemed to win their battles with traffic.

It was charming, bewildering, and endlessly entertaining — my first real introduction to Southern life.

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