Southern Living, Then and Now

From Shenandoah, we drove south towards two very different representations of southern life – the old and the new.

First stop was Jefferson’s home named Monticello, which was added to our list of destinations mostly because I’m a total nerd about that period of history. Ryan was impressed as well though as we strolled among the grounds and toured the house with a very knowledgeable and quirky tour guide. Monticello and the acreage Jefferson owned gave a wonderful glimpse into how one of the most popular and prominent men of the late 1700s-early 1800s lived his life. What became quite clear on the tour was that the survival and upkeep of Monticello and the lifestyle Jefferson lived was completely and utterly dependent on slaves. Quite in debt throughout most of his adult life (he would accumulate approximately $2 million dollars of debt in today’s dollar), if it weren’t for the slaves that harvested crops, made nails, and ran his household, it’s quite likely Jefferson would have been in deep trouble with his creditors and spending his time writing appeals from jail instead of the Declaration of Independence. So in that document, when Jefferson wrote “all men are created equal,” I’m sure his conscience was squirming.

Luckily Jefferson treated his slaves as kindly as he could, and the slaves quarters (while tucked semi-underground below the hill of the estate), were particularly comfortable for them.

Back to the debt though, Jefferson’s home (where we weren’t allowed to take pictures of the interior), was filled with beautiful paintings, hundreds of books, maps, scientific instruments, busts of all the great men of the day, not to mention built in intricacies like skylights, revolving doors, and specially designed clocks. That plus the exquisite food Jefferson ate (he brought one of his slaves to France with him to be instructed in French cooking and ate as such ever since), it’s pretty clear how the bills started to pile up. Nerd moment – by far the coolest décor Jefferson had in his house was the original pair of antlers mounted on a wall that were brought as a specimen by Lewis and Clarke themselves back from the west on the Voyage of Discovery. I was pretty ecstatic about that.

Overall, Ryan and I found the idea of Monticello, with its flower gardens and orchards, vineyards and beer cellar, a romantic vision of plantation life in the south two hundred years ago. Frozen in time and preserved as carefully as possible, it was fascinating to fathom the life Jefferson lived there.

From Monticello, it was time to experience more modern southern life, and where better than at the State Fair in North Carolina.

At this wonderful cultural experience, there were tons of Chernobyl sized pumpkins, decorative gourds, an extensive gardening section, and of course ridiculously expensive livestock raised by 4H kids. We wandered about guided by one of my good friends born and raised in the state, admiring the winning “largest watermelon” and listening to the good-natured southern accent all around us. If you want a good chuckle, imagine Jefferson talking like that.

One cultural highlight of the fair we had to experience was the cooking, which was not in the least bit French.

Of course in the photo above you can’t even begin to tell what it is we’re eating, but believe me when I say those are fried Oreos, fried cookie dough, and fried cheesecake on a stick. Yup. Welcome to the south! To me, the sugary sweetness was almost too overwhelming. I like all those things separately, including just fried dough like funnel cake, but combing them was almost too much. The cookie dough especially was so sweet it almost made us sick after just four of the fried mounds. The Oreos were the best, but even those took my stomach for a turn. What’s even crazier is we didn’t even scratch the surface of what we could have purchased fried.

The most intricate fried thing was probably the “Twix bar wrapped in bacon,” though the unfried “Krispy Kreme Donut Burger” (a burger with donuts as buns) probably gave a lot of the fried foods a run for their calories.

After gorging ourselves on fried things, it was off to the races… of pigs that is (if video does not load, click here).

I wonder what Jefferson would have thought of this modern day pig race could he attend the state fair. My guess is he would have thought it just as hilarious as we did, because “pig races are boring” said no one ever. They also raced baby goats and ducks, which all the animals seemed to understand “if I just turn this corner, and then this one, and this one, and this one, I get food!” It definitely got the crowd cheering every time.

The fair ended with a finale of fireworks lighting up the South Carolina sky. Between the fireworks and the carnival games we wasted some money on, plus the sugary food and pig races we were happy to be little kids again, and more than happy we were able to experience southern life both old and new. Now off again to the mountains!