“Don’t call me hillbilly,†Grandma always told us. “I was raised in Kentucky. I’m a hill-William!â€
My sister and I giggled and plotted the next time we could raise her ire.
You see, there is the South, complete with gentle southerners; and there are the hills where gun-toting, moonshine-swilling, revenooer-hating hillbillies lived.
I grew up in the city surrounded by concrete, humanity and black-belching buses, from “the Bottoms,†a neighborhood mostly forgotten by the rest of Columbus. Nevertheless, it was not country – or hillbilly heaven – or southern.
They each have their place. I’m a city girl. My place was home.
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Written for Tara’s 100 Word Challenge: SOUTH. My sister and I loved to get Grandma’s ire up. Calling her hillbilly was just one of many ways.