God Save the Sweet Potato Queens by Jill Conner Browne Page A

blind to your indiscretions for a time, we are most assuredly not. We are simply pretending to be, in hopes that you’ll amend your ways yourself. Should it become clear to us, however, that you have no such intention, well then, we are perfectly willing and able to fling your ass over the nearest available fence and go right on our merry way, worry-free. It also indicates that down here, pretty much everybody can play football
pretty
good.

6
    Wishing Is Not a Felony
      T here has been much discussion—indeed, nationwide—since the publication of
SPQBOL,
on the subject of Men Who May Need Killing. First you’ve got your group that’s just all for it, literally, and for the slightest offense—a really bloodthirsty lot, this. Of course, we never meant it literally—even if a man’s behavior has been universally declared hideous beyond belief, even by his own mama. We will concede that, yes, indeed, he
may
need killing and that, in fact, we might not even be real sorry if somebody did kill him, but we are 100 percent against actually setting out to do it our ownselves or even halfway suggesting that somebody else do it. The most important reason is the simple wrongness of it, of course. In addition, we would be in a whole big lot of trouble, and that would bring along a multitude of errands, which we are totally against at all times. To make the record clear, when we say a man needs killing, what we really mean is that he should be left
alive,
but alone. Southerners have a way of exaggerating. We do think it’s pretty funny to ridicule shameless men, but that right there brings out the politically correct whiners who insist on taking every little ole word with a big dose of literal; and, jeez, by the time you get through explaining to them that it’s just a joke (and after you explained it to them, they didn’t get it anyway), it’s not funny anymore. We do try to avoid any direct personal contact with this type of individual whenever possible.
    I once went to school with a guy named Michael R. Warmington, and he would always introduce himself by the whole name, which I loved. He was one of the funniest people I have ever known. He used to crack me up whenever a friend of his announced he was generally pissed off at another individual: Michael R. Warmington, by way of establishing that he was completely and totally on your side, would say, with a completely straight face and a slight gasp beforehand, for emphasis, “I hate him. I hope he dies.” The first time I heard him say it, I cringed in horror: You just do not say such words in a Southern Bible Belt home. After the initial shock of actually hearing the words spoken, I was utterly delighted with them and from then on have used them my ownself in exactly the same way—with, I might add, exactly the same results. Nearly everyone who hears this assessment for the first time is stunned, perhaps a tad put off, but then perfectly delighted to be supported in their rightness to such a degree.
    (Another thing Michael R. Warmington used to do was to quote poetry that he claimed was his own. One of his poems was a particular favorite of mine. He would draw himself up very tall and proper and looking straight ahead, like a third grader in a spelling bee, and say, “‘Feet’ by Michael R. Warmington,” and proceed to recite, “You need feet to stand up straight on, you need feet to kick your friends, you need feet to hang your socks on, and keep your legs from fraying at the ends.” It is one of my all-time favorite pieces of poetry, and whenever my daughter, BoPeep, has to memorize a poem for school, she always [foolishly] asks my opinion on what her selection should be; it is always the same: “Feet” by Michael R. Warmington. For some reason, she won’t ever do it. I think any teacher worth
anything
would have been as impressed with it as I. Yet she refuses. Sigh. Soon after I wrote this passage, I tracked down Michael R. Warmington; he lives not far from