South and West: From a Notebook

I liked it! Reading about the South is always a little fascinating. The regionality of this country is at times hard to reconcile, especially today with this vague monoculture and supposed shrunken world. I did not grow up in The South, but I grew up in a place that was quite insistent it was Southern, and would you please remember that, everything in their character insisted.

A few times in the Southern notes, Didion talks about free flag decals. Impossible not to think of Prine's Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore an incredible song as applicable in the late 60's as it was in 2002 and 2025. I say 2002 because I remember after 9/11 and the years following when the local newspaper would come with full page inserts: one side an American flag, the other at times a tearful eagle. These were all over the place. You couldn't pass a busted up mobile home or hole-roofed house without seeing them in the windows.

So, while Didion is trekking around the South in the 60's, it sure does feel like the Southern region of the state I grew up in. Similar people, maybe with some proclivities a little dampened. Same fondness for the high school gymnasium and the one restaurant in town. There is a lot that I see familiar, anyway.

The short section of Western notes is quite different. I don't relate to the San Francisco or Sacramento of it all, though it is lovely writing.

Part of it is simply what looks right to the eye, sounds right to the ear. I am at home in the West. The hills of the coastal ranges look “right” to me, the particular flat expanse of the Central Valley comforts my eye. The place names have the ring of real places to me. I can pronounce the names of the rivers, and recognize the common trees and snakes. I am easy here in a way that I am not easy in other places.

Southern