Mark Bishop
Singing News Article
October 2007
Anybody that has met me knows that I
am a country boy through and through. I have never had a
conversation with someone and left them wondering if perhaps I was
from up north. No one has ever asked me if I was from "Jersey".
I was born and raised in the heart of Kentucky. Right where the
bluegrass meets the mountains, that's where my upbringing began.
That's most likely where it will end. I have lived my life in the
land where Daniel Boone found it fit to settle in his day. Lewis
and Clark came through here. The Happy Goodmans and The Hinsons
found it agreeable too.
You and I have known many folks who have what you would call a
southern accent. When a person who was raised in the south speaks,
their dialect usually gives them away. This is ok when a
southerner is talking to another southerner. But when a southerner
starts talking to someone from somewhere else, that someone from
somewhere else is usually confused.
Now where I'm at in East-Central Kentucky, we even have our own
home-grown layer of dialect to add to that southern accent. When
you get into some of the eastern counties of Kentucky, the
language can be nearly impenetrable.
This, of course, never matters if you never have to leave the
comfortable boundaries of home. It might not even enter your mind
until your city-slicker relatives come in for the holidays.
Some folks might look down on southern culture. But I've never met
anybody here in Kentucky that is as oblivious as the characters on
the Beverly Hillbillies. Although I have met plenty of folks who
were that optimistic. John Denver sang a song called "Thank God
I'm a Country Boy", and most southern folks I know are glad of
their heritage. Have you ever heard of "southern hospitality"?
Chances are, if you've spent time in the south, you've experienced
it.
- Back
-
