Cool Dixie

To the Editors:

I applaud the special issue of TIME on "The South Today" [Sept. 27].

You made an excellent assessment of what makes a "new" Southerner a "real" Southerner. Perhaps until now I didn't know and thought no one cared.

Anne Cavin Walters Hampton, Ga.

Your issue was a delight, but in all those pages on the glorious emergence of the South, there was only the briefest nod toward the reason why we're booming down here. If it weren't for air conditioning, the South would be uninhabitable, by modern standards, for six to nine months of the year.

Eleanor B. Pierce Tampa, Fla.

How Dare You?

Who do you people think you are "discovering" the South? Patting us on the back because Faulkner rose a phoenix from our ashes? Because Carter plays the erudite Good Ole Boy? Because you have finally noticed the real bigots live up North? How dare you patronize us?

Ann Goette Distler Donaldsonville, La.

Smell Dem Magnolias

Paul Gray observes that "Southern writing today ... seems stalled between the glorious past and an uncertain future. The past ... has become a burden to its inheritors."

TIME reports that movie moguls have hired Anne Edwards, a non-Southerner, to write the genesis for a sequel to Gone With the Wind, the alltime "mules and mansions" novel.

No matter how far the Old South recedes into shadow and dust, the money seekers will always pull back the Faulknerian mansions and moss to show the glorious past. Y'all smell dem magnolias, honey? Edgar H. de Lesseps Arlington, Va.

The Southern Language

You have opened up a Pandora's box with your comments on the rich and colorful expressions of the South. The one sticking in my mind since my Army duty in Georgia is: "You're as nervous as a long-tailed cat at a rocking-chair convention."

Franklin Gottman Waterford, Conn.

I'm just grinnin' like a mule eatin' briars as I read this issue. Ann Viamonte Dallas

Add to the similes: fine as frogs' hair.

Frederic N. Home Virginia Beach, Va.

I Can't Go Back

I testify with your Bonnie Angelo that Southerners never really leave. But I can't go back--until perhaps they improve the ski slopes back home, and the Chinook and steelhead run the Bayou Pierre. The Yankee life has been too good.

Jefferson Davis Miller III Camas, Wash.

All this Georgia girl can say after reading "The South Today" is 'Oh, Lord, I wanna go home!"

Thanks for the most unbiased writing I've seen lately.

Joan Smith Cole Monroe, Conn.

You forgot to report on the tar-paper shacks and the many thousands of acres of undeveloped wasteland. Now how about one on the Midwest and Ford Country, y'all?

Frank Gregory Kokomo, Ind.

Your issue gave us a lot of corn pone to swallow.

The Northeast has made the New South a present of our federal funds, brains, brawn and jobs. Without the deprivation of the Northeast, the New South would never have risen.

Richard L. Auten Stratford, Conn.

Brain Drain Gnat Strain

I think you're straining at gnats to explain the "brain drain" from the South. I suppose it's natural to relate the brain drain to writers. But the apparent reason for the writer drain is that the

New York and Southern California areas have been centers for the arts. If you had selected petroleum engineers, you would have come to an opposite conclusion, for the same reason--career opportunity and economics.

Lovick P. Thomas New Orleans

State of Mind

Don't you-all know the South is not a location but a state of mind. You left out Kentucky!

Ruby W. Ebert Chagrin Falls, Ohio

When are you going to stop using that map left over from the Civil War that includes the whole state of Texas in "the South"?

Except for East Texans, the rest of us live in the Southwest.

Pat Colonna Den ton, Texas

Blooming Arts

It was with surprise that I found no Art section included in "The South Today." Despite this lamentable omission, the arts are blooming in the South, and Southern artists, art educators and art historians are making significant national contributions.

Charles Randall Mack, President

Southeastern College Art Conference Columbia, S.C.

Bible Belt Values

It is not the sun belt that is prospering; it is the Bible Belt. Religion has a powerful effect in maintaining the humanity, civility and cohesiveness of a region. It teaches people that there are higher values than efficiency and moneymaking.

William Blake once divided up the districts of England in the form of a giant man. The same could be done for America: the Northeast is the nervous system, the Midwest the muscles, the South the spirit and the emotions, and the West--well, the gonads.

Raymond L. Neubauer Austin, Texas

Bad TIME

I would be a lot more upset about your somewhat gratuitous reference to the Delta Democrat-Times as a "second-rate" newspaper if I thought it was written by someone who had actually read the paper. But it fits in nicely with the generally half-witted tone of your issue on the South.

Glenn Garvin, Staff Writer

The Delta Democrat-Times

Greenville, Miss.

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