The Gulf Coast was a hostile climate for Yankees. Bugs ate us alive, we were susceptible to every kind of fungus and parasite, and some of our neighbors harbored murky and ill-defined grudges that were implanted in their genes before the Civil War, as well as more recent ones, born of the Yankee invasion that took jobs they were felt they were meant to have and ridiculed them and their heritage.

Life was fraught with unexpected peril. One sun-scorched day I heard my two-year-old and three-year-old girls babbling in their baby patois, and looked outside to see who was in our yard. Tract housing had "drainage ditches," not much of a threat as such, but for the fact that that they were cleaned by convicts, all chained together just like in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" only not as cute. My babies were having a conversation with them. I was horrified, in the classic sense of the word.

"Well," said my friend Callie, with the calm that comes from knowing the outcome, "Did any harm come of it?"

Gentility ruled. No Southern woman ever said the word dead, not in her entire lifetime. She would quite naturally say, "She has passed through the gates to larger life, and is now with her Maker, our Blessed Lord God," or some extended variation of that sentiment. Also rarely heard were the words incest, murder, rape and other hideous sorts of aberrant behavior. There were euphemisms for these heinous acts, and clinical terms were socially unacceptable.

Also not discussed in clinical terms were illnesses. Everyone knew you had a gall bladder, so it was not necessary to refer to is specifically. "I felt like a big 'ol Swamp Thing had crawled down my throat and had its way with my insides," was descriptive of an attack, and could apply to a variety of other organs that were "acting out."

No Southerner of any gender ever said in one word what could be said in ten. "He would walk up the wall and across the ceiling to tell a lie before he'd stand on the ground and tell the truth" is just so much nicer than 'He's a Liar,' don't y'all agree?" Instead of "speeding," it was more courteous to describe it as, "He drives that shiny little red car like a clothes line full of clean white sheets snapping in the wind, and twice as fast."

And being a lover of words, I was in their thrall when they spoke. Not just the warm butterscotch drawl, but the way they used all their colors. I appreciated the subtlety, the nuanced delivery, that poetic profusion of color and texture.

Rudeness was to be avoided at any cost. Virginia Ann would never have described Raylene as, "that tacky bitch." Instead, with her lovely and refined butter-on-grits drawl, she remarked thoughtfully, "Well I suppose any day now it will come into style to wear gold eye shadow to a DAR tea, and good merciful God, that hair color is absolutely breathtaking, in a perfectly dreadful kind of way."

Alcohol — especially by women — was referenced differently in the south.

Virginia Ann's mother came from "upcountry" Mississippi to visit occasionally, and of course, a coffee was given to welcome her. She confidently held court at these morning gatherings with a tumbler of amber liquid, redolent of bourbon, graciously inquiring of other guests if they would rather have "iced tea" instead of coffee.

Ladies who lunched, or who played bridge in the afternoon drank only sweet sherry, because they were assured as they tottered glassy-eyed and giddy toward their cars, "you can't get drunk on sherry."

Genteel poverty was not only acceptable, it was considered brave and almost noble. Samantha had been raised in high style in Bermuda, and she and her children rambled around in a big, but not especially lovely, old house. However, Samantha did not seem to possess "everyday stuff," and although finances had reduced her to serving "wine" that was handmade by residents of a swampy bayou, it was poured from 100 year-old crystal decanters. It wasn't so much the taste of the stuff that was off-putting, as the fear that we'd go blind from drinking it.

Agatha Lee Payton was from upcountry Mississippi, but like many in her crowd, had impressive academic credentials. She had married a cousin, so was forbidden by her family from having children, but was rewarded with the privilege of raising a few castoffs from others in her extended family.

Agatha Lee called me about filling in at bridge on the day Lurleen Wallace (wife of then-Governor George Wallace) died of cancer.

"You know what killed her, don't you?" she asked.

"Wasn't it cancer?"

"Oh, my goodness no, Baby Girl, it was the voodoo. They jus' hated her," she said, "and they did her in."

Augusta Lee's entire house disappeared during Hurricane Camille, but she never waivered in her faith in God's mercy. Sure enough, six months later, the attic — just the attic — was found in a bayou two miles away. But that's where she had stashed the good stuff. It was all there, unharmed and waiting to carry on the family tradition.

All true (except for the names), I SWEAR!

Former Cragsmoorian and Shawangunk Journal correspondent Dianne Wiebe reports from below the Mason-Dixon Line (Maryland) about the South and all things Southern. Published every time "she come on out from back down up in under there."