William Ogden Haynes was thirty years old before he ventured to the "Deep South." Born in Michigan into a family with a long, distinguished lineage in the Midwest, his father, a career officer in the Air Force, moved the family every few years to a number of foreign countries and several cities in the U.S. After a stint in the Navy and the completion of a doctoral program in communication disorders, Haynes eventually accepted a job at Auburn University. Now retired and having lived in the South for more than half his life, he shares the observations and experiences of a transplanted Yankee adapting to Southern culture over a fifty-year period in Alabama. Most of the poetry examines everyday situations experienced by people wherever they live, but the Southern culture brings its own special resonance to each occurrence and every poem in this book is somehow related to the South. The narratives were gleaned from my own observations and listening to the experiences of native Southerners as they talked with me about their lives. It is my hope that in viewing these interactions through the eyes of an outsider, true Southerners might gain some insight into themselves as well as those of us who come to this beautiful place from other parts of the country.