'Southern Pride', yeah right...

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Sounds like an interesting tale! These great American hit-the-road sagas!

Are you to an extent self sufficient: do you grow a lot of your own vegetables and so forth?

I only wish!

I’m leaving out a lot of details. This past year has been terribly discouraging. I was a band director at a Catholic school who refused to hire me full time. When I took the job, it was ok. But as the program became more established and I managed to get funding, I told my superiors I need more classes in order to bring in more students. Some of the obligations I had that prevented me from working full time became a non-issue. Not only did they not hire me full time, they actually CUT my funding and gave it to my do-nothing, whiny colleagues.

Meanwhile, things went south at my church gig and our worship leader was fired...uuuuhhh, I mean, asked to resign. It was handled badly. So I immediately jumped in to handle choir rehearsals while working with an interim on Sundays. Certain choir members went behind my back to say I should ONLY play piano, not rehearse the choir.

I was ready to quit the morning COVID-19 shut our church services down.

Spring break lasted the rest of the school year. I used that time for limited online instruction while looking for a job, ANY job. With the COVID-19 situation as it was, either admins were holding off hiring or they were picking up new teachers entirely by word of mouth. I only got two job interviews, and wasn’t even sure I had a job until mid June. I asked my then-boss if the contract he gave me was really the best he could do. He said it was, and I told him the last 5 years had been a pleasure.

Our new daughter, child #4, was just born Wednesday last week, almost a year to the day since we lost a baby to a miscarriage. It’s easy to walk away when you feel there’s nothing left to lose. We were working 4 jobs trying to make ends meet with just 3 kids. By taking this job, I make the same amount in two jobs as we were earning last year COMBINED, and my wife isn’t even looking for a new job yet. And all it took was getting out of the Delta and relentlessly chasing something that matched my talent.

No matter how stuck or hopeless you feel, no matter how bad things seem, if you really hate it where you are, JUST LEAVE. What you sometimes find is that when it seem you can’t afford to leave, the real truth is you can’t afford to stay. It’s financially draining and physically exhausting to make a big, risky move. But the alternative carries a greater cost on your intellect and your soul. Intellectual and spiritual bankruptcy is a bad place to live.

how about...barbecue?

Happening under the Magnolia tree when the rain stops.

I wonder which Georgia people think is worse? The southern US state that was formerly a part of the Confederacy or the Eastern Europe country that was formerly a part of the USSR?

Let's rather head south to South Georgia, a practically uninhabited island (except for scientists) in the far South Atlantic...

Sounds interesting!

The South has some of the most amazing scenery in the country. The Great Smoky Mountains, the Blue Ridge Mountains, Big Bend National Park to name a few geographical features.

I like our swamps.

My state has swamps, mountains and prairies.Very active weather.
We’ve had both blizzard warnings and a tropical storm warning.

Cotton Fields are also pretty.

I second New Orleans jazz. But OP is right about all the media; I never realized how Lady Antebellum could be problematic, but...of course, the word Antebellum is in the title so that’s why! So obvious that it’s not until something happens. So many things you don’t realize the problem with until something goes wrong.

Exactly, whenever race becomes an issue in this country the first thing that the media and the protesters do is start attacking everything about the south. Suddenly anything related to southern culture becomes racist.