Oxford Town, Oxford Town

As I posted yesterday, there's an article up at NRO about what a great place The South is. It's gotten a bit of attention in the part of the World Wide Web that I frequent. Here's Glenn Reyonlds response:

To be honest, we’d rather word didn’t get out. Stay away! In fact, I need to point this out: The South is a cultural desert, across which ride Klansmen on horseback and NASCAR fans in F350 Dually pickups. The cultural center is Wal-Mart, and the occasional tailgater before a lynching. Gunshows are disdained as the domain of pointy-headed intellectuals, because they also sell books. No, really, that’s all true — stay away! For the love of God, stay away!

UPDATE: Reader Phil Manhard emails: “I wish to add that we have fire ants, sinkholes, red tide, shark attacks, huge and regular brush fires, sandspurs, sunburn, hurricanes (though, unexpectedly!, none in the last couple of years). Yes, for the love of God, stay far away!”

And the chiggers. Beastly critters you want no part of. Stay in Massachusetts!

And we are ever so unworldly-- which reminds me of a story.

A friend, I'll call him T, used to live in a very nice older subdivision in Memphis-- large trees and big lots separated by fences. T was very good friends with M, a Brit. M is one of the snottiest, most arrogant, insufferable human beings I've ever met-- Brit or otherwise. How T & M became friends I will never understand. 

Anyway, M was visiting Memphis and T had him over for a cookout. T's neighbor was in her yard, across the fence. As T tells this story, his neighbor was a first-class busy body (as a lot of Southern women are). So she hollers over the fence, "Hey, ya'll," and T is obligated to introduce M. 

She proceeds to chat it up with M, finally asking, "Where y'all from?" 

To which M, in his snotty, most arrogant, insufferable British accent, replies, "Oxford." 

The neighbor gets a funny look on her face and says, "Funny. Ya don't sound like yur from Mississippi."

Oxford, Mississippi is so backward it still has phone booths!