Why can I write 'South' with some assurance that you'll know I mean Richmond and don't mean Phoenix? What is it that the South's boundaries enclose?

Why can I write 'South' with some assurance that you'll know I mean Richmond and don't mean Phoenix? What is it that the South's boundaries enclose?

I can see why many Southerners, black ones in particular, don't like the implication that Southernness and the Confederate heritage are one and the same, because they're not. On the other hand, there are people who want to extirpate that completely and want folks to spit on the graves of their ancestors.

But I still do believe that there are useful things to say about Elvis Presley, including what his own ordinariness as a poor Southerner says about 20th-century hero-making.

Dixie has just fallen to pieces. There are little patches of Dixie. But even in the heart of Dixie - in Alabama - Dixie is slipping. They've stopped using the word in commercial listings.

I think there's a suspicion in the South of people putting on airs. You see it in most successful Southern politicians, but you also see it in someone like Richard Petty, who may be a multimillionaire stock car driver, but he's also beloved because he has a nice self-deprecatory way about him.

No one would stand for it [being the fool in the media] in a minute if you took any other group -Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanics, women - but somehow it's okay to do that with hillbillies.