Old times there

Even though my favorite college football team is Alabama, and my paternal granddaddy hailed from Macon, GA, I look away from Dixieland most of the time. I don't like heat and humidity and most of the politics down there. But I'm not here to talk about politics today. Someone asked me why they call America's sunny southland "Dixie," so I looked into it. 

Please, someone ask about full-length mirrors, so I can look into that, as well.

There was a savings and loan institution in old Louisiana known as the Citizens State Bank. They were in the French Quarter of New Orleans, so you have been near their location if you ever went to see the Saints come marching in. 

In the curious way of American banking before the Federal Reserve and the FDIC were set up, banks issued their own currency, so you could pay for your coffee and beignet with a ten-dollar note from that Citizens Bank. These ten-spots bore the word "DIX" on their reverse sides, "dix" (pronounced "deece") being French for "ten."  And eventually, other banks in Louisiana put that word on their ten-buck notes, and in no time at all, those tens became known as Dixies.

At first, it was just the French-speaking parts of Louisiana that came to be called "Dixieland," and soon enough, the entire south proudly wore that nickname.

For those interested in studying Dixieland jazz, a form of hot "jass" (later changed to "jazz"), there's no better place to start than this selection by some Englishmen known as the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.  

Next time, we'll look at why they call it "New" England.