In a spirit of honesty I need to make clear that I do not regard myself as a great fisherman-philosopher. If truth be known, I'm not even a great fisherman or philosopher, and most of the time when I think about fishing I'm doing no more than that; I'm simply thinking about fishing. However, occasionally experiences drawn from my pursuit of fish take my mind to other more esoteric realms, and catalyze "wonderings" that would not have presented themselves to me had I not been an angler. One such is my ongoing reflection on my ambiguous relationship with America's Southern states.
In 2013 I spent three gloriously self-indulgent weeks undertaking a solo road trip around some of the aforementioned states. I stayed in a mixture of motels and the homes of friends I'd made on the internet, and caught fish in locales that ranged from the Ocean off South Carolina to lakes on the Missouri/Arkansas border, drove 3000 miles, spent time in nine States, and discovered an area riddled with contradictions and paradoxes that has led to an inner conflictedness that I've never subsequently succeeded in resolving.
The land of the Jim Crow laws, legally enforced until just three years before I was born, is also the land of the "Bible belt", a phrase coined by HL Mencken in 1919. Southerners are famed for their courtesy and hospitality (and I was a grateful beneficiary of it), but as one wag once quipped "a Southerner is gracious and friendly until he is mad enough to kill you!" For many of the South's inhabitants it appears that the collective memory of the Civil War is still one where a feeling that "we lost" (accentuated by some folk I met referring to this historical internal conflict as "the War of Northern Aggression!") persists, despite the Stars and Stripes that fly in the front yard of almost every house or trailer. To a European, there is also something unfathomable in observing that those most likely to unquestionably imbibe the dogma of the "American Dream" are those least likely to ever see its promises of advancement, material gain, and social mobility, realised in their "deep South" blue collar lives.
The irony, however, is that despite my uneasiness about aspects of the South's past and the tendrils that reach from it into the present, given the chance I'd sell up and leave Blighty in exchange for a life in the Southern states tomorrow. None of that is in any way to minimise the misgivings already cited, but the simple fact is that I've rarely been happier in an environment than when I was a guest in the South. For a start, there's the weather, neatly described by Eugene Walter in his novel "The Untidy Pilgrim" with the memorable observation that "Summer in the deep South is not only a season or a climate, it's a dimension." I can recall stepping out of my air conditioned car in South Carolina, and within minutes my shirt being wet, the hot moisture from the air mixing with my own sweat. As someone who loves the feeling of the sun's warmth on his skin, it has to be said that the climate has a lot going for it. I warm to the story telling traditions and the bluegrass music, the priority placed on family, the food ( it has been noted that "You can say a lot about Southerners, but you can't say that Southerners as a people are duly afraid of deep fryers", and while the originator of that sentence may have meant it as a superior put-down, deep fried food works for me!), and I cannot ignore the fact that some of the nicest, kindest, most generous and friendly people I've had the pleasure of spending time with were with the friends made during my all too brief American adventure.
Add to all of the above, the Outdoorsman culture that is prevalent (go into any Walmart store- the equivalent of our Asda- and you'll find a couple of aisles dedicated to fishing tackle), the sheer volume of water available to fish, and the ease with which one can talk about God and discuss matters of faith in the American South, and the appeal to an angler like me who defines his life predominantly through the filter of his faith is easy to understand.
But what about the contradictions and paradoxes, some just the result of cultural differences, others with more disturbing roots? I guess I'm with JD Vance, the author of "Hillbilly Elegy" on this one- cultures are complex, and resistant to simplistic analysis or solutions. That the South is haunted by the legacy of slavery and segregation is inarguable, but the white Southerners with whom I talked were all hoping for a more integrated future, but unsure as to how such a future might be achieved and attained. I must also confess that although I drove through the Appalachian Mountains, passing dilapidated but still inhabited trailer homes with rusted out refrigerators and pickup trucks slowly decaying in their sun-baked front yards, I only lodged and rubbed shoulders with blue collar and middle class Southerners, so never saw the extremes of poverty experienced by black and white communities in some of the poorest areas, and was consequently sheltered from exposure to some of the South's inequalities and problems in their more extreme forms.
So, what to conclude? During my brief sojourn in the South, I discovered what I already knew: that societies, cultures, and people are complicated, and resist being neatly pigeonholed. While retaining my European scepticism of the "American Dream" and the populist Trumpian brand of Republicanism that has gained such traction amongst working class white voters in the Southern States, I have no hesitation in saying that I enjoyed my time in the South, and that there were as many of the values that its people embrace (the importance of family, community, and personally owned faith, as well as the general outdoorsy vibe) that resonated warmly with me as there were those that disturbed me. Add to that the fact that it's still a place where you can wear double denim and it be considered not just acceptable but also almost de rigueur (always a plus for someone who was a teenager in the 80's), the weather is glorious, the pace of life slow, some of the scenery spectacular, the food comforting and plentiful, and fishing is considered an almost mandatory pastime, and it's not hard to see why I pine to return with a fishing rod in hand, and a mind as open as were the hearts of those who hosted me and fished with me on my last visit to the land of Flannery O'Connor, cotton picking, and the Grand Ole Opry.
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