Breath our scents, walk our landscape, hear our melodic dialects, delight in our savory morsels, touch each rich texture, and the southern essence remains a mystery. The ethereal south, unfathomable to the five senses, lives in the heart. If you believe in magic, and can survive the devastating passions of an open heart, just possibly, you stand a chance of living a moment as a southerner. Most people aren't brave enough to be southerners, even the ones that are.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

O is the "O" Word


Today’s O word, some may argue is a letter and not a word. I beg to differ. Well actually I don’t beg to differ, I have decided to differ, and darn well will if I choose. Here beneath the Carolina Moon the letter O is a word. It’s my blog rule and I’m not changing it. O can be Oh or it can just be O. Oh is more like “ouch”, or “oh yeah that’s nice”. O can be a name or initial, as I mention a little later, or it can be like the big O; once again, as in “oh yeah that’s nice”.

There used to be a tire store around here named the Big O Tire Store. No, it really doesn’t make sense at all, but here beneath the Carolina moon, we have stuff like that. Rest assured, once upon a time it made perfect sense to someone in some way that is now lost to history. But that’s not the kind of O I’m writing about today.

Today I am writing about William Sydney Porter who was a draftsman by trade. That’s his picture at the top of this post. This picture was taken in 1909, the year before he died of cirrhosis of the liver, diabetes, and an enlarged heart. He died at the age of forty-seven. Mr. Porter only gave one interview in his life, and I suppose for a draftsman that’s doing pretty good, to even get one media interview and your picture published. But Mr. Porter had a few secrets, a prison experience being one of them, and another life that he lived as an O.

Now some will argue that it was a letter O as an initial. But an initial has to stand for something and this O stood for nothing; it was just an O. So I say it was the word O. Mr. William Sydney Porter was none other than the famous author, O. Henry. And, where I come from, that kind of O is a word. It’s a big word. It isn’t the big O, but it’s O. It’s a big O, but not “the big O”. What’s that you say? Oh?

Mr. Porter, or O. Henry, was born in Greensboro North Carolina. Yes, beneath the Carolina moon. And, that is today’s O.

Dread

1 comment:

Sandy Kessler said...

apersonal favorite of mine. I love to be educated thusly sk