ABOUT: Susan, Southern Legitimacy Statement:I was born a “Telfair baby” here in Savannah, Georgia. Telfair was the Woman’s Hospital that faced Forsyth Park in historic Savannah. My parents walked next door to have me as they lived in the Round House, meaning the porch went all the way around, circling the old home , built before the Victorian era at 10 East Duffy Street.When I would “go missing” they’d find me taking a tour of the hospital with one of the nurses showing me off. I got off onto the social ladder in this way.Being Southern means knowing the etiquette handed down by the genes and knowing when to draw out that twang a little longer when there was an audience. I milked it for everything it was worth.My father was assigned to the USS Savannah, a Naval Destroyer Escort that made her maiden voyage from Savannah. He met my mother as she was walking her dog through Chippewa Square (famous now for Forest Gump’s “life’s a box of chocolates”. They weremarried shortly after they met and went on to raise eight children in those huge houses that the south is noted for from way back. I was raised on hoe cakes and cane syprup and grits with tomato gravy.The south is more than tradition for me. It’s a religion of heritage and pride. I’ve traveled the world since my birth and the one redeeming factor with all people all over is when they hear the southern accent, a huge grin comes over their faces and they ask you to say …waw ta (water) again and again. Being a true southern belle is an institution that isn’t found anywhere else in this world and reason enough to be proud of the passion found only in the great tradition called “Dixie”. I’m a proud part of that institution and endear the tradition in my heart and I wouldn’t trade Dixie for all the high cotton on earth.~Susan Kathryn de Vegter~ .