THESE PARTS FORT WORTH-SOUTHERN NO MORE?

what’s this? Fort Worth, that neighbor town that enjoys the historical advantage of being just thirty miles from a major city, has now been unceremoniously kicked out of the South?

Seems that way. No, the change is not the result of Yankee overload or an insufficient grit count. Foat Wuth will have to blame its demotion on the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, a 1,600-page. $50 tome to be released this spring. The handiwork of a group of scholars at the University of Mississippi, the book reinforces what the late Amon Carter Sr.. publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, said years ago: Fort Worth is “where the West begins.” (Carter also added that Dallas was “where the East peters out.” The nerve.)

The encyclopedia’s thousand-plus entries include sketches on Baylor University, barbecue, goo-goo clusters, moon pies, Willie Nelson, Charley Pride, Herschel Walker, LBJ (the man and the freeway), and other bragging points. Southern cities covered include Atlanta, Birmingham, Charleston, Dallas- but alas, no Fort Worth.

The scholars can expect some flak from Fort Worth, where an awful lot of folks consider themselves Southerners. Just drive down Lancaster Avenue and count the pickups with “Forget, Hell” bumper stickers-and it ain’t the gunfight at the O.K. Corral they’re not forgetting. Not to mention grits with breakfast at the Stockyards Hotel, Confederate flags flying on July 4, and “ya’ll” pronounced as a drawn-out, two-syllable word.

Is Fort Worth’s exile permanent? Some ex-Southerners in Fort Worth were determined to face the news with a stiff upper lip. “By the time the book comes out,” says a member of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, “maybe we’ll be back in the South.” Frankly, Scarlett. . .