Southerners have a lot to be grateful for this year.
Here’s a handy cheat sheet of perfect answers for when Aunt Sarah Jane makes you all go around the table and say what you’re thankful for this year.
1. The continuing good health of Nick Saban, Les Miles, Frank Beamer, Hugh Freeze, and their brethren. It just wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without some good old-fashioned football rivalries.
2. A bumper crop of Georgia pecans—an excellent omen for Thanksgiving pies.
3. The Bourbon Bandits have finally been caught. Over seven years, the nine-person conspiracy lifted $100,000 of worth of Pappy van Winkle and other Buffalo Trace vintages.
4. A Southern Miss America. Betty Cantrell, a Mercer student, was crowned in September.
5. Charleston was crowned America’s favorite small city. Whether it’s on your bucket list or it’s the sight of your annual family vacation, the Holy City has a lot to recommend it.
6. Flannery O’Connor is on the 93-cent stamp. She joins the ranks of fellow Southerners William Faulkner, Ella Fitzgerald, Arthur Ashe, Abraham Lincoln, Sam Houston, and Althea Gibson with this latest honor.
7. Eater named 12 Southern restaurants to its 38 must-try restaurants of the year. Don’t miss FIG, Cochon Butcher, Underbelly, Prince’s Hot Chicken, and fellow honorees.
8. 2200 soldiers with the Third Cavalry Regiment returned home to Fort Hood. After many months in Afghanistan, they were reunited with their families.
9. Selma got its due. The blockbuster Ava DuVernay hit cleaned up at the box office and the awards circuit, highlighting the debt all Southerners owe brave Civil Rights crusaders.
10. American Pharoah finally broke the Triple Crown losing streak. The trio of races kicks off at Churchill Downs, and no one had won all three in thirty-seven years.
