Blind hogs and acorns.  It’s a colorful old Southern expression, from the day when most Southerners were involved in agriculture, which expresses that something that is pure luck. 

My daddy used the phrase to diminish encomia heaped upon him for astute business decisions — “It wasn’t particularly prescient on my part.  It was more like an old, blind hog stumbling upon an acorn.”  

I assume it’s a Southern phrase — I can’t imagine a Northerner saying it.  I can apply the phrase to my pleasure in being chosen to write this blog for Brown’s Guide to Georgia, and I must say I appreciate those who read and respond to the assorted nonsense this old blind hog comes up with.   Hopefully there’s an acorn or two of truth — or reminiscence — or levity, at least occasionally.

After my exchange last week with the convenience store clerk over the word “sack,” I’m tempted to go back in and ask her if she has any sweet milk or light bread.  The first of those delectables we’ve covered in a previous entry, but “light bread” is simply pre-sliced, enriched white loaf bread — Colonial, Sunbeam, Wonder, Merita, to dredge up some names from the past and present.

I don’t know why it’s called “light bread,” but I’ve heard that everywhere in Georgia I’ve ever lived, so I think it’s fairly common usage.   As an aside, I happen to prefer to eat hamburgers and barbeque sandwiches on light bread than on buns, which probably isn’t so common.

I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who can tell me why it’s called “light bread.”  Until I do, I’ll persist in calling it that, and in eating it with my barbeque and hamburgers. 

I bought three or four small things in a convenience store the other day, and the preoccupied clerk offered me nothing in which to carry them out.  “May I have a sack, please?” I asked politely.

“A WHAT??!!” came her sarcastic and not-at-all friendly reply.

” A sack,” I repeated, feeling a bit awkward and conspicuous, but unsure as to why.

The clerk, who as far as I could tell was not foreign, had never heard a “bag” referred to as a “sack,” which made me wonder if the latter is a Southern thing.  “I thought a sack was something you got into each night — like hitting the sack,” she told me.

 ”I’ve heard that and said it,” I told her, “but mostly a ’sack’ is what we bring groceries home from the store in.  She seemed unconvinced, which I might understand if I had asked for a “poke,” usage I’ll admit is old-fashioned and quaint — but not to know what a “sack” is?  I’m continually amazed.

In visiting with some non-Southern friends over the holidays, I was reminded over breakfast one morning of yet another difference in regional pronunciation.  Syrup — that wonderful elixir most often in the South made from ribbon cane, but from sorghum cane when a thicker, more pungent syrup is wanted.  Maple syrup imported from the North is also considered a delicacy here.  We just pronounce it differently.  Everyone I’ve ever noticed who is from the South says “SUR-up,” the first syllable of which rhymes with  “Yes, SIR!”    Many other folks say “SEAR-up,” the first syllable of which rhymes with “Sears” or with “Cyrano de Bergerac.”  I’ve never heard anyone from the South say it the second way, which makes me think ”SUR-up” is a regional pronunciation.

It’s not terribly important in the scheme of things, I suppose — what’s important is to get a piping hot home-made biscuit, butter it, and slather it with your favorite syrup.  It’s so good it’ll make you slap your grandma away from the table.