Gettin by in East Tennessee.

Some say tomato, some say tomahto but in East Tennessee it's maters.

Potatoes are taters.

A creek is a crick. 

Your Grandfather is your Papaw. 

Your Grandmother is your Mamaw.

What you call bean soup, we call soup beans and you eat it with corn bread.

What you call license plates we call tags and we say tags even though there's only one on the back.

Sit is set.

Piece refers to distance (up the road a piece).

Spell refers to time  (set down fer a spell).

It's not iced tea - it's sweet tea or unsweet tea. Otherwise it's hot tea.

It's not a shopping cart - it's a buggy.

Window is winder.

And a hollow is a holler and that's where I live. You'll never here the word hollow in East Tennessee. You might see it on road signs and such but it's always pronounced holler. Critters don't sleep in hollow logs here. They sleep in holler logs.

Knoxville people like to consider themselves part of East Tennessee but most of the people here don't think they are. Johnson City, Kingsport and Bristol (they're called the Tri-Cities) are considered the big cities in East Tennessee by the country people. Memphis is a world away and might as well be in Arkansas or Texas for that matter as far as any connection to the people here. Nashville is a long ride.

Well, lookin' out the window the holler is still white with snow. When you get down lower it's like the season changed, there's no snow on the ground at all. I see one of my dogs - Merle, just sittin' there waitin' for something to come out of the woods so he can chase it. If he doesn't see anything he'll be at the back door pretty quick cuz it's about 27 degrees out there and he's a Rot/Dobe mix that isn't too crazy about the cold. I love my dogs.

Well, this kept my hands busy for a few minutes without a cigarette. Now if I can just get through a couple more weeks I'll be fine. Oh yeah, no problem. Right.