I have a problem with the exact location of an imaginary, biological line that competes with the old geopolitical Mason Dixon Line.
The Gnat Line, as I have read about it and heard talk of, is the new demarcation boundary of the South as a region. Homogenization has smeared all kinds of lines from the past and much of that smearing is a good thing. Some of the Old South’s ideals were hardly something to be proud of. But in this instance, I’m talking about gnats. Not that we’re proud of them either.
Growing up in Alabama, we had our share of the little ear-whizzers. They get in your eyes, your ears, your mouth, and any other orifice they can reach. That gnatty whistling sound alone can slowly drive a human insane and I expect more than a few Southern eccentrics used gnats as an excuse for their odd behavior.
Texas gnats were tougher than horsefly jerky. I saw a Biblical plague of gnats descend on a high school football game one Friday night in North Carolina that would make Cecil B. DeMille proud. It made me wonder why more Southern teams (besides the Savannah Sand Gnats minor league baseball team) aren’t called “The Gnats.” No, Washington fans, “The Nats” don’t qualify without that “G” spot up front.
Calling the place where the North meets the South “The Gnat Line” is, to me, a little misleading in an insectful manner. I just made that word up, but it fits because gnats aren’t just one fly. Gnat is a catchall moniker for several types of little flappers and if you want the gnatoid details, Wikipedia them.
New York City, hardly a Southern town, had a few gnats when I lived there, but I think they called them something else: Gnyats.
St. Louis had sneaky little gnats that worked in tandem like a sports team. They’d all show up, do their gnat-ish jobs (basically pestering anyone involved with soccer) and go back to little gnat neighborhood bars to celebrate. In fact, it is biologically known that male gnats like to hang out in swarms when mating – sort of an Alpha Delta Gnata fraternity looking for trouble. Something to think about when they get in your mouth.
The largest and most belligerent gnats I have ever swung at lived in the Maryland suburbs, north of Washington, D.C. Those gnarly gnats were big and thuggish and tried to arm-wrestle any person who attempted to swat them. We tried gnat repellent and they thought it was dessert topping. This was back about ten years ago, before those suburbs were 8-laned over and the lush cornfields west of Gaithersburg (Gnatville) were condo’d into concrete planned communities. Somehow, I bet there are some holdouts gnat gangs still operating in that area.
So, as far as the Gnat Line goes, the South can hardly claim exclusivity on the ubiquitous gnat anymore. The pesky buzzers are headed north and west like Kudzu and fire ants, both once uniquely Southern pests.
Personally, I’ve always seen a gnat as the stupid third cousin of a fly and the nicer uncle to mosquitoes. If Jack Black is a horsefly, gnats are Will Ferrell. Which, when you think about it, explains why there have been no movies about gnats.
In a post-Mason-Dixon world, let’s come up with another name for the Gnat Line. The Y’all Line is already in the Urban Dictionary. How about the Biscuit Line? The Cornbread Line? The MoonPie and a RC Cola Line? Do I hear a vote for the Collard Greens Line? The Deep Fryer Line? The Jeff Foxworthy Line?
Or maybe there isn’t a line anymore. Which just may be the way it was supposed to be all along.