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It seriously has just about everything, and there are people from all walks of life and backgrounds.
I visited/vacationed in Florida throughout my childhood. My father is from Panama City and my mother lived in Hollywood/Miami and I spent many spring breaks as a kid traveling between those two cities to see family.
After I graduated college I lived for a few months on the Kentucky/Tennessee boarder (Clarksville, TN) and I thought I was in the south when I lived there. Then I spent about a year in Columbus, GA. Georgia and Alabama are a total different level of "southern-ness".
Head to a place that is more synonymous with being "southern" and you'll see why people don't consider Florida part of the deep south.
"Most Southerners and just about every redneck is Scots-Irish and it shows."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there actually a bit more diversity in terms of white/European background than that in the South-English, Scottish/Scots-Irish, Welsh, French (Louisiana), Spanish (Florida), even some German in places like North Carolina or parts of Texas?
Re: the Scots-Irish: I've read that most of them are descendants of the "Borderlands" people (near the borders of England, Scotland, and Wales) who settled in Ireland for a few generations before coming to America.
And of course, there's the ubiquitous "American" ancestry, especially common in the South, which often signals either Scots-Irish, and/or a big mix of different ancestries-a "mutt"! 
Especially now what with all them newfangled cars n' such.
Here's a map from Wiki
I was going more by the overall "personality" of the south, which certainly changes from place to place. And indeed, even though I live in one of those red counties, it ain't the south.
But fundamentalism and authoritarianism run strong in the south from the Presbyterianism of the Scots Irish.
One Hessian officer said, "Call this war by whatever name you may, only call it not an American rebellion; it is nothing more or less than a Scotch Irish Presbyterian rebellion."[41] A British major general testified to the House of Commons that "half the rebel Continental Army were from Ireland".[50] Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, with its large Scotch-Irish population, was to make the first declaration for independence from Britain in the Mecklenburg Declaration of 1775.
The Scotch-Irish "Overmountain Men" of Virginia and North Carolina formed a militia which won the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780, resulting in the British abandonment of a southern campaign, and for some historians "marked the turning point of the American Revolution".[51][52]
As I understand it, the Renaissaince pretty much missed lowland Scotland. Apparently somebody in London wrote a memo on a cow to inform us since reiving cattle was the primary industry there. But unfortunately we screwed up and stole a blank cow and never got the message.
You're right about the borderlanders. The Scots Irish might even be traced back to the celts, but that's iffy. I have a fancy though that Hadrian dealt with my ancestors long enough and finally said, "Fuck it. I'm tired of dealing with you people. Stay on the other side of this wall". Then later, king James dealt with us for a while and said, "Fuck it, I'm tired of dealing with you people. Go to Ulster and run the Irish out of Ireland." Then after a while the Irish got tired of us and said, "Fuck it, we're tired of dealing with you people. Go to America." When we landed here all of the rich, clean organized Germans and plantation owners said, "Fuck it, were tired of dealing with you people. Go to Appalachia and fight indians". Then we became 'Muricans. Praise Jesus, we're home.
It's on the way. Amazon one click owns my ass.
I was just born and raised there.
the inland South was settled largely by people from the Scottish border country, either directly from the Scottish lowlands/north of England (Cumberland and Northumberland) or by way of Ulster (where a good many Scots border country Presbyterians went in James I's Plantation of Ulster). More than a quarter-million people emigrated from the Scots Lowlands, north of England and Ulster to North America between 1715 and 1775, and almost all of them ended up in the inland South (the Carolinas, the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Georgia, etc) and most of those first emigrants' descendants ended up moving west to Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and so on. The Ulster Scots Presbyterians came to culturally dominate the lowland South to the extent that even people whose ancestral origins may be different in those parts of the country became culturally Scots-Irish (as an aside: the origins of the term "redneck" come from the Scots Covenanters, who signed an oath and declaration pledging to uphold Presbyterism as the established church of Scotland...many of them signed in blood, and wore red scarves to signify their support, hence "redneck"
. Some of the disctinctive elements of this culture; social organisation based around the extended family, a distrust of outsiders, quick temper and use of violence as a means of settling disputes, and early marriage...the average marriage age in the Scots border country was the youngest in Britain, at around 19 or so, and the inland South continues to have the youngest age at marriage of American regions.
The South also, historically, experienced very low levels of immigration in the post-colonial era; much lower than any other part of the country (all those people in the South who put "American" for ancestry on the Census? Are probably descended from colonial-era immigrants).
There's a very interesting book, by David Hackett Fisher, called "Albion's Seed: Four English Folkways in America" that looks at American cultures through the lens of the persistence of the distinctive British regional cultures of the earliest groups of settlers (New England Separatists from East Anglia, Pennsylvania Quakers from the north Midlands of England, Virginia Cavaliers from the south and southwest of England, and from the Scots border country to the inland South). I'd recommend it as being worth a read.
your description of the culture (oddly enough) sounds very much like Maine.
Very interesting. Thanks for your post. 
I hope you eventually get reacquainted with her.
Maine, or rather, the southern part of Maine (particularly Portland) is gradually becoming known as a great 'foodie' destination. But alas, I live a good distance from there, where the cuisine is pretty much the same old- same old. Otoh, seafood is quite inexpensive even though I'm a good distance from the coast too... There is always a silver lining if one looks for it, I suppose.
Nice chatting w/you! Hope to see you around DU again soon.
"It's Like an Amusement Park that can Kill you."
Otherwise as long as you remember that your fine 
People are wonderfully friendly here too!
and visited a lot more.
What rrneck says is true.
People who just visit the South usually go to the cities, where one can get a superficial picture of what the South is like.
Me, I am from a long line of Irish American folks, and feel comfortable with the clannish behavior, which, in the small towns,extends automatically to your neighbor.
I deliberately chose to retire in a small ( pop. 6,000) town here, because I knew people will come to my aid if needed.
I find the communication much like Japanese culture. Polite, seemingly friendly on the surface, but takes awhile to get to know people underneath.
We don't talk about politics unless we know each other well enough.
Took me 2 years to get to know my roofer, who struck me as gruff and withdrawn.
Not so, come to find out..little by little he opened up, loves to tease, really loves to try to get my dander up about Obama, in a sparring way. Now I can call him about anything, knowing he will know who has what I need.
bad mouthing people is not done, and folks will avoid suggesting a roofer or plumber rather than tell you anything negative. OTOH, if they say so and so is "real good", it is worth checking out.
One thing that stands out is people hate to tell you no.
Drove Mr. Dixie, who is from Cal. stark raving mad at first.
He would get all sorts of answers in his quest for an item at the hardware store, but never get a direct no,
would come home empty handed, madder than hell.
And he could not figure out why someone who had agreed effusively to show up to do a job did not show up,
instead of saying to his face they did not want to do the job for what ever reason.
People here LIKE to help out, and will jump at the chance to do something for you if they can.
But there is an unwritten score card of who owes who a favor, and the fun game is to get someone owing you more than you owe them. I am pretty good at that, since we give away our organic free range eggs and are always home, so pick up the mail and paper for traveling neighbors.
A lot of good food gets sent to us in return. 
Oh..the accents.
I cringe when I hear movie people try to fake accents. There is NO one "southern accent"
There are many southern accents, deoending on age, origin and race of the person speaking.
Some accents are dying out.
Another thing..." you aren't from around here, are you?" means: I don't know you, I can't "place " you, so I won't trust you with anything but polite greetings. you are an outsider until I decide otherwise.
If they want to get to know you, they start asking questions I regarded as intrusive and highly personal, back when I did not know better.
Later I learned to mention working nearby, or knowing someone they were sure to have heard of,
or mentioning indirectly how long I have lived in the South.
" I used to have a house across town on such and such a street, next to Mrs. so and so"
will be greeted with " Oh, I know her, she goes to my church", and the conversation becomes warmer.
I usually say "I wasn't born here but I got here as fast as I could and I will only leave feet first", and watch people smile and relax. They...we..are very proud of our area and like it when people tell us they like it.
People of all ages will strike up a conversation at the store, or on the sidewalk, post office, etc.
Perfect strangers just stop and talk to you.It is a pastime.
It takes me 30 minutes to do my grocery shopping but an hour to get home from the store.
I love it.
Yes, there are racists and bigots and tea party morons....some of them live up the street.
yes, there is a dearth of intellectual conversations, but "while in Rome, do as the Romans do" works well for me,
and I am pretty good at the all important small talk.
( You ALWAYS ask about the family when you meet)
The positives of low housing costs, lack of real winter, a strong sense of community, plentiful sunshine, low crime rate, friendly and supportive neighbors, makes up for a lot, living here.
Oh...look what I did.
I chatted on and on...just like a southerner.
Your response and others have been fascinating reading for me.
The reason that Alabama has very very low property taxes is because of racism.
Property taxes are local, by county.
They pay for the schools.
There are 2 kinds of schools: "private", for the white kids that can afford them
and "public" for the poorer kids, largely non-white.
Every week in the newspaper (which contains many typos and atrocious grammar) there are school and class pictures and the segregation is glaring.
This is a very very very old part of the racism.
When I was looking to buy a larger house here, the real estate lady pointed me to a rapidly growing town nearby which has a lot of newer houses, and they had pretty high prices.
turns out, it is the area where most of the "private school" families live.
She naturally assumed I would be interested in living in the "most desirable" area.
Home schooling is big here, getting bigger.
People here are smart, overall. But not big boosters of education, as a rule ( there are, of course, exceptions...3 Pulitzer winning writers are from my town)
Happily I have other outlets to get my brain scratched..
Thanks, DU!!!!
conservative. Virginia isn't the deep south - northern Virginia and the southern parts of Virginia are very different. Richmond is different from say Virginia Beach and both of those are different from Roanoke. I live in rural southwest Virginia and find it to be stifling politically but I have my liberal friends and some members of my family that help to keep me sane.
I love the mountains of Virginia and rural life suits me. The best thing about the south are southern hospitality, sweet iced tea and biscuits.
I've lived in big cities - Alexandria, Richmond, Virginia Beach, Miami, Phoenix, and Tucson but I'm more at home in the country surrounded by trees and wild critters.
Definitely off the beaten track, but well worth the effort to get there.
I was born n raised in Wash. and my dad worked construction, so we lived in a LOT of small towns all over the state, both sides of the mountains.
Got my degrees at U of W...tho never heard a lot of rude talk about other people.
course, that was in the 70's......we had other things on our mind.
Seattle used to be like a big friendly small town.and ended moving to the South after half a lifetime in Wa.
tho, like you, I lived in other places and drove across the country 4-5 times.
and ended up for the last 30 years living in the South, which I love. It's like kudzu...it grows on ya.
I have a feeling that Texas would be a lot more progressive than it is if so many Texans were less interested in living out the legend of Texas, and instead, living in the reality of Texas.
Make of that what you will.
But...
You have people wearing cowboy hats and boots who have never, and will never, rope cattle from horseback.
You have people sporting guns, and advocating for their public display in cities where, in the 19th Century (The "Old West" there were strict ordinances prohibiting the bearing of arms.
The fallen of the Alamo are revered because they "fought for freedom", even though the major figures were slave-owners, or advocates for slavery, who were fighting to expand the institution to Mexican Texas, which had outlawed slavery.
Texas executes more people annually than all the other states combined, and often cites "deterrent" as a justification; all the while ignoring the fact that Houston, for example, has an astronomical crime-rate.
Norfolk
All my relatives are from the mid-Atlantic--MD, VA, NC.
In the South don't be quiet when you're with people--that's considered weird and rude. Ya gotta chat. People from other places find this burdensome. Relax. It doesn't matter what you say--just babble about anything, whatever comes to mind. Don't worry about accents, just chat.
