Smiley Anders for Aug. 13, 2008

• By SMILEY ANDERS
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Aug 13, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Here’s one for our “That’s What I Like About the South” collection:

Spanish Town neighbor Ibby Griffing gave me a column her niece in North Carolina sent her.

It’s by Celia Rivenbark, a syndicated humor columnist who lives in Wilmington, N.C.

Celia has noticed that there’s a Southern way of visiting folks in hospitals:

“Bring as many of your family, extended family, preachers, wanna-be preachers and co-workers as possible, and make sure that somebody brings a purse big enough to contain the fried chicken, nanner pudding and pimento cheese sandwiches.”

She contrasts this with the way Yankees visit the sick: “Family members visiting one at a time, staying only for 10 minutes and speaking in hushed tones.”

Having been in and around hospitals a lot lately, I can heartily agree with her.

Down here, hospital visits are a form of tailgating:

“Here, honey — I know how hospital food is, so I got some boudin balls from Tony’s and a fried shrimp po-boy from George’s.”

Jellyfish, not Tigers

Gail S. Stephenson, at a conference in Palm Beach, Fla., says she noticed purple and gold flags flying at the beach and thought “how nice it was that the lifeguards were LSU fans.

“Later I learned that the gold (actually, canary yellow) flag meant moderate surf and the purple flag meant dangerous marine life, such as jellyfish.”

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