My wife gets a kick out of me always saying, "...but I'm originally from Alabama." She said no one else does that, but a few months ago she had an architect for Chick-fil-A who was looking to revamp one of her stores and gave the exact same line. Found out he grew up about ten miles from me.
There are yankees everywhere, and there are good ole boys everywhere. When I was hiking the Maine portion of the Appalachian Trail, I ended up spending two consecutive nights in the small town of Andover. It had a quirky feel to it, but I think if I'd spent one more night there I wouldn't have left. If you ever watched the show Northern Exposure about an oddball town in Alaska, that's probably the best way I could explain it. I was at the country store and struck up a conversation with an old guy, lifelong resident, and he asked, "son, do you know what's wrong with Maine?" As politely as I could, I offered that in my time there I'd found nothing wrong with it. He responded, "there's too many damn yankees up here!". There are parts of the country that, if you were to fold a map over itself, you wouldn't be able to tell each other apart, spare the accent. I think Maine and Alabama are like that. I think much of South Carolina and Alabama are like that, too. Alabama was the frontier when the farmland in SC played out.
RTR,
Tim