Dixieland

I reckon y'all have all heard of Dixieland. Or maybe just Dixie. It's what we call the South (Southeastern U.S.) There are several stories about how we ended up with this name. My favorite, and the one I believe to be true, is about money. New Orleans had a big influence on the South. It was at the end of a long journey down the Mississippi River and goods were brought in and sent out down there. New Orleans was under the influence of a French culture; just consider the name. Way back they used money with French words on it and a ten dollar bill had the word DIX. I looked it up down at the library and it's the French word for ten. People started calling a ten dollar bill a DIXIE. And then people, mostly those up north started calling the whole area DIXIE. And from that came DIXIELAND. Today, lots of things have names with Dixie in them: songs, beer, cosmetics, cafes, businesses, lumber, and even daughters. They even attached Dixieland to a kind of jazz. I reckon because it's such a sweet sounding, melodic word, doncha know? When you hear the word spoken you can all most feel warm night breezes and smell the honey suckle floating in the air.

Tales of Harper, short stories and poems about the fictional town of Harper, Mississippi is available on Amazon Kindle