I am a proud southerner. I can’t help it. I’ve lived in the South all of my life. I want to be buried in magnolias and have a combination funeral and pig pickin’. And my loyalty to North Carolina is shameless.But the southern drawl eludes me, and it really ticks me off sometimes.

I love a good southern accent - how folks can pull a word out and stretch it to about three times its size. If I am away from home and hear a southern accent around me, I recognize it instantly and it feels like home. And no two are the same. Contrary to what Yank - er - people who aren’t from the South believe, we don’t all sound alike.

The southern Texas twang is very different from the slight whine of a Tennessean. Both of the Carolinas have a bit more guttural stretch than Georgia’s slow methodic, “I’ll finish the word when I am ready and add as many syllables to it as I want too, thank you” drone. And folks from Alabama just seem to have their own language altogether.

But not me. Not I. Daughter of the South, born in Georgia, raised in Virginia and settled in North Carolina. I sound really average. No twang, no drawl, no collards in my mouth … just plain ol’ words.

I will readily admit that sometimes I fake it. That’s right, I fake a southern accent. I know it’s sick, but it’s the truth. I can produce a gorgeous southern drawl if I need too. Like if I happen to be at Sweetings Store buying some silver corn and the usual crowd is hanging out discussing life in Hubert. I can smile and let a “Well hey ya’ll,” with the best of them.

I learned the art of faking it during summer trips to visit my grandma. Marybell Toler was the epitome of a southern women. She was born in and raised in and never-lived-anywhere-else than little Washington. She was the society editor for The Washington Daily News for more than 40 years. She knew everyone in the town, and everyone knew her. She had the most distinctive voice - a gravely authoritative sound with a thick southern drawl.

When I was little, she constantly worried that I was going to lose touch with my southern roots. I lived in Virginia, and she didn’t think Virginia counted as a southern state. If I hadn’t been to visit in awhile, she would give me a call. She’d listen very carefully to the way I talked. It wasn’t so much my enunciation she was concerned with, but the speed of my delivery. If I talked too fast, she would make arrangements for me to come and visit because she felt I was becoming a northerner.

“That child is talking too fast, and I can’t understand a word she is saying,” she would tell my mother with alarm. “She needs some tar on her heels.”

So I’d prepare carefully for my visit. Days before the trip, I would practice in earnest saying “Noworth Kay-ro-line-a” instead of North Carolina. I would practice greetings like “Whe-yell, hay thar!” (Well, hey there!), “My Heh-vans” (my heavens!) and “Iat ias ja-ust soooo goo-aad to seee you!” (It is just so good to see you!) because they would be put to the test.

During every visit, my grandmother would put an announcement in the society page “Miss Timmi Toler of South Hill, Va., will be visiting her grandmother Marybell Toler of Water Street.”

That announcement meant family and friends would come calling; and by God, I’d better be drawling with the best of them. In no time I would slow my speech, stretch my words and add a few syllables here and there.

And soon, I became pretty good at faking it, but I have never mastered it completely.

But I did get a lot of tar on my heels - and it’s never come off.

Timmi Toler is a staff writer at The Daily News who swears that a southern accent is the only thing she fakes. To contact her, call 353-1171, ext. 220, or e-mail ttoler@freedomenc.com.