They Call Me Orange Juice

Book excerpt: From the time she could barely see over the space bar of her old manual typewriter, to writing her popular southern culture blog, Folkways Nowadays, author Audrey McDonald Atkins has been sharing her downhome stories and essays about life in the South. In They Call Me Orange Juice, Atkins provides a nostalgic, poignant, and often-hilarious look at growing up in a small South Alabama town and how that upbringing still influences her today. What does it feel like to be the only Episcopalian at a Baptist church? How do you entertain yourself on a two-hour car trip with a dead man? What do you do when your foundation garment goes rogue in the middle of a busy intersection? And what price did they pay for calling her orange juice? Atkins answers all these questions and more in her own unmistakable Southern style. She recounts stories about the men who congregated in the police station and the eccentric characters who worked on Main Street, shares words of wisdom from her Granny, and tells how one superstitious old man could literally make it rain even during the dry, dog days of summer. Each person still lives in Atkins memory frozen in time just as they were in the 70s, and its these ghosts of bygone days who shine through in They Call Me Orange Juice.