Tag: Hardy Jackson

By Harvey H. (“Hardy”) Jackson Roy Blount, Jr. (the funniest man alive) in Roy Blount’s Book of Southern Humor (the funniest book ever put together) tells a story he got from Loyal Jones. (Stealing is OK as long as you give credit to the one you stole it from, which, you will note, is what I am doing right here.) It goes something like this – actually it goes exactly…

By Harvey H. (“Hardy”) Jackson From ghoulies and ghosties And long-leggedy beasties And things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us! Traditional Scottish Prayer I love Halloween. Loved it since I was a kid. Those of you who grew up in the small-town South probably had similar experiences. In my village Halloween was given over to the children. The night was ours. We roamed the streets in…

By Harvey H. (“Hardy”) Jackson The South excelled in two things which the French deem essential to civilization: a code of manners and a native cuisine. John Peale Bishop Well, old John Peale may have been onto something there, but according to a couple of recent studies the cuisine part of our culture is leading us to an early grave. Not long ago it was reported that anyone who wants…

By Harvey H. (“Hardy”) Jackson The Masters is upon us. Now I don’t golf. Golf is, to me, as Oscar Wilde observed about foxhunting, “the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.” This attitude toward golf, golfing, and golfers left me ignorant of the game and unprepared for an opportunity that came my way when I was a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Georgia. One bright spring day…

By Harvey H. (“Hardy”) Jackson Back in my teaching days one of my courses was one designed to introduce students to what is euphemistically called (by people into euphemisms) “Southern culture” In class we talked about things like regional mythology, religion, humor, literature, folklore, music, manners, and such, but no matter what we covered, I kept trying to get students to ask themselves and tell me “what makes it Southern?”…