I wish I could go back about fifty years and hear myself talking. A young man, really just a boy, trying to figure out where life might take me. Raised in the cow pastures and around the rural dirt roads of Henry County, Georgia by a dad who grew up plowing behind a mule. Hushed and told to sit up straight by a mama who went no further than the 8th grade because her granny thought schooling was a waste of time.

I’m not being disrespectful of my parents when I describe them as such. I have never had anything but respect for them. I’m just giving you an idea of what the soil was like in which my life took root. They were of a generation of southerners who lived through the Great Depression and who, because of that, kept a life together that was simple and often without significant change.

They were what was known as country folks.

The reason I wish I had some kind of recording of my voice from fifty years ago is that I learned the finer points of common speech from them. Like any child, I imitated what I heard. If my dad called ‘em taters, I called ‘em taters.

For example, we’d be sitting up at the supper table, and I’d make a general request to no one in particular, “Would you hand me some more of them mashed taters?”

We did not eat creamed potatoes at our house. We mashed ‘em, stirred in a pat of butter, and placed a pile of English sweet peas in the middle. For those of you who were expecting me to say we put gravy on our taters, the gravy was reserved for the biscuits.

What intrigues me is how much of the old patterns of speech have left me. I do not talk now like I talked back then. I CAN talk that a way, but most of the time I don’t. I haven’t used the word “taters” for a long time unless I wuz a trying to sound like Andy Griffith.

I know exactly where to place the blame for this change in my speech. I know exactly where I was when I first heard someone tell me that I needed to clean up my use of the English language.

I was a sophomore in college. I was taking a homiletics class under the guidance of Dr. Olin Hay. For those of you scratching your head right about now, homiletics is the study of the art and science of preaching. It’s like a speech class but with a particular focus on crafting a sermon.

About halfway through the semester, Dr. Hay gave us young men a chance to demonstrate whether or not we had learned what he had been teaching. We all wrote a short 10 minute sermon, stood up front of the class, delivered our message, and waited on his critique, which he also did in front of the entire class.

I took my turn. His critique was kind. But when the bell rang and everyone was clamoring for the door, I heard Dr. Hay call my name.

“I want to see you for a few minutes after class.”

The room got quiet. I took a seat up front and my professor pulled out a chair and sat across from me. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together out front.

“We’ve got to work on your dialect,” he said.

Now, I’ll tell you, at the age of 19 I was unaware that I had a dialect, and even more unaware that it needed attention.

There were two words that I remember which we discussed. I imagine that there were a lot more, but these are the two I remember him using to plead his case.

“You used the word, fanger.”

“Yes sir. Jesus wrote in the dirt with his fanger.”

“Well…” he paused.

I could tell he was a thanking what to say next.

“It should be, Jesus wrote with his finger.”

“Ain’t that what I said?” I asked him.

“Not exactly.”

My whole life my daddy would, from time to time, hold out the index on his right hand toward me and say to me, “He-ur. Pull my fanger.” I knew what was coming and we’d both laugh. Mama would fuss at him.

“John, don’t teach him that.”

Or we’d be working on strang’n up (stringing up) some barbed wire, and he’d tell me, “Don’t get your fanger in the way. I’m liable to staple it to the post.”

The other word was, thank. As in, “I thank I might have me a piece of apple pie.”

According to Dr. Hay, I managed to butcher nearly all my vowels. So, I was sent off to work on the proper use of vowels and the acceptable parts of speech for public consumption.

I have not, to this day, mastered the English language, although I have, as a basic pattern of speech, managed to clean up most of the twang in much of my pronunciation of it.

My patterns of speech largely depend on the context in which I am speaking. If I’m giving a workshop to the local garden club on the selection of trees for the landscape and the proper pruning practices for tree management; if I work at it, I can make myself sound like I might have a suitable understanding of my native language.

But if I’m sitting around the campfire talking about fishing and hunting, old tractors, and telling old stories, I will find myself slipping back into the dialect of my youth with purt-near no effort a t’all. Some thangs a feller never forgets.

The dialect of the south is not about being sloppy. It’s not about ignoring the rules of grammar. And it’s not, as some might think, about making us sound like we ain’t got no education.

To me, holding on to the old speech is about preserving and not forgetting our southern heritage. To lose it is to lose a part of who I am. Remembering it reminds me of the lessons I was taught.

My dad must have told me a million times, “That space ‘tween your ears ain’t just for holding your cap on your head.”

This usually came after I did something dumb.

I ain’t never forgot it. He could have told me to use my brain for thinking through my lesser impressive decisions. Instead, he put it in a way that made me visualize what he meant. And to this day, I hardly ever put on a cap without hearing those words.

I don’t know what in tarnation I’m really trying to say here. I reckon I’m just walking down an old path. At my age, I kindly don’t care if somebody tells me I talk funny.

Sven, from Sweden and who ran the visitor’s center in Golden, British Columbia, told me he liked my accent.

There are parts of my southern speech patterns which I hope I never lose. Some, I am trying to reclaim. And if you can’t understand what I’m saying, just let me know.

I’ll repeat it s-l-o-w-l-y for you.