Give 'Em A Hand

My parents are probably some of the best parents that you could ever ask for. They taught my sisters and I morals, values, financial consciousness (well, to some extend... but we're still working on that one), laughter, coping abilities and every thing else that you'll need in life, including the ability to be cynical. And they did it all without ever explicitly saying, "Now girls, this is a time that you should laugh because that was funny" and without ever punishing us in a conventional method. (My parents don't believe in "grounding" and never physically punished us; they believed in "THE TALKS!") But all of this made me think of one of my favorite things (that is also one of the easiest to describe) that my parents did for us: Raised me in Georgia.
I am glad that I was raised in Georgia. Not because of the pretty decent education system, not because Georgia is one of the prettiest states (in my opinion) in the south, not because it's the only state out of all 50 that begins with a "G". I am glad that my parents raised me in Georgia, because of the way it sounds with a southern accent; and if you've ever been around me for a decent amount of time, I'm sure that you've made fun of my southern accent. But think about it. It's pretty when said by a southern female. Georgia doesn't sound quite as pretty with a northern accent, but everyone knows that a southern accent is more elegant anyways. If you just aren't understanding this and don't know me well enough to be able to imagine my voice, then think of Scarlet O'Hara (and if you don't know who that is, stop reading this right now.) Scarlet O'Hara could seduce a man just by the way she says "Georgia" while batting her eyes under her parasol. I mean really, could you imagine if she had been from Alabama or Mississippi. If she had to say "I'm Ms. Scarlet O'Hara from Alabama" they probably would have had to make her a working woman instead of a southern belle. (no offense to any of my friends from Alabama; it's nothing against your state, just the way it sounds.) Or if it was "I'm Scarlet O'Hara from Mississippi", Tara and/or Twelve Oaks would have been the equivalence of trailers during the civil war instead of plantations. So thank you mama and daddy, for raising me in Georgia; so now if I need to seduce a Rhett Butler, I'll just have to whip out my parasol and learn to bat my eyes a little more.