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I was born in Morehead City, North Carolina.  My childhood was filled with long beach days and a severe lack of the four traditional seasons.

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The culture that I drew heavy influences from in my youth was surf and skate culture (Bert's Surf Shop was a hot spot for locals to shop for gear, stickers and clothing). Culture is often gathered from the surroundings and being two blocks from the beach made it almost impossible not to be enthralled by the complexity of the beach town culture itself.

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Living in the South meant that Bojangles' was the best fast food place with food that five star restaurants could not even compare to. Sweet tea was only sweet and I experienced an intense culture shock with the introduction of unsweetened tea (I still hate it today).

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There are more than 600 Bojangles' locations, but the best one of them all sits just off the Interstate 95 exit in Selma. That is the opinion of Brandon Sanders, a 36-year-old basketball trainer. I thought all Bojangles' were the same; the ones in Asheville should taste like the one in Farmville. Then again, I'm not Brandon, who travels all around North Carolina and has eaten at more than 100 different Bojangles'. He picks up on the subtle differences between locations like a fried chicken sommelier. The biscuits in the Raleigh and Johnston County area, he says, tend to be better than the ones Down East. If you go to Kinston or Goldsboro, they have Dijon honey mustard sauce, something you won't see in Raleigh or Greensboro. The tenderness of and breading on the chicken is critical. Leaving the Carolinas? Beware. Brandon once ate at a Bojangles' in Maryland before a Redskins game. "It wasn't the same at all," he says.

I've heard others say the greatest location is in Vanceboro. Or Belmont. Or Plymouth.

Vanceboro got the best Bojangles OG

- KaleeltheDeal⚡️️ (@KaleeltheDeal) November 2, 2016

Swear there is no other Bojangles like the Belmont Bojangles

- Miranda Wood (@Miranndapleasee) January 13, 2017

Looking for consensus, I created a post on Reddit that asked North Carolinians which Bojangles' is the best. Nearly 200 replies came in. In one day. The Western Boulevard location in Raleigh, the closest one to North Carolina State University, received the most love. Still, Brandon stands by Selma. For one, it's 10 minutes from his home in Clayton, which also has a good Bojangles'. For another, it has the old-school orange awnings over the windows. In fact, if he drives by a newer Bojangles', he'll usually continue up the road to an older one instead, preferably one with a mansard roof. Once inside, Brandon's eyes scan for a specific item behind the glass. "It's about the fries," he says. The seasoning is addictive, but it needs to be the right amount. "That's how you can tell a good Bojangles'."

Brandon's Bojangles' obsession started early, with family meals. Uncles from his father's side of the family would always pick up chicken and biscuits to take home, while relatives from his mother's side would often eat in the restaurant. But regardless of whether Brandon was taking out or staying in, he ate Bojangles'. Maybe, at some points, too much. He says he's blessed with a fast metabolism, but even so, he's decided to cut back - to two or three times a week. He could go to other places that sell fried chicken, but it wouldn't be the same, he says. "They don't have that soul to it."

The company itself has a term for people like Brandon: Bo Fanatics. They eat a lot. They tweet a lot. A freshman at East Carolina University posted that she stayed in-state for college because of lower tuition and Bojangles'.

two reasons why i didn't go to an out of state school: higher tuition and no bojangles

- veah (@heyveah) December 28, 2016

When I pressed her on this point, she said she wasn't kidding. Folks in Bo-free zones complain that there are Bojangles' in Honduras - true: There are three - but zero in their city. To help communicate all this passion, there are even Bomojis: company-created emojis that include characters kneeling and holding up a box of chicken like a sacrifice to the gods.

Some at Bojangles' call the loyal following in North Carolina, where a third of the restaurants are located, cult-like. "They hate it when I say 'cult,' " CEO Clifton Rutledge says of his colleagues. "Bojangles' is a good cult."

"They hate it when I say 'cult,' " says CEO Clifton Rutledge. "Bojangles' is a good cult."

Sonya Lewis can make roughly a thousand biscuits in an eight-hour shift. She's worked at the Bojangles' on Gate City Boulevard in Greensboro for 11 years. Twice, she won the company's Master Biscuit Maker Challenge, which draws biscuit bakers from Bojangles' worldwide. (One of the prizes: Sonya's face is on paper tray liners at hundreds of restaurants.) All biscuit makers are supposed to follow a strict 48-step procedure, which includes an exact method of placing 15 unbaked biscuits on a buttered pan, and precise measurements for biscuit height, width, and light-brown color. If they're not sold in 20 minutes, the biscuits are thrown out.

So if everyone makes biscuits the same way, what gave Sonya an edge in the competition? "You have to know the procedure," she says. And what else? "You have to know the procedure," she repeats, dryly.

Sonya works mostly out of the sight of customers in a small Zen-like nook, a few steps away from the clanging, gurgling, yelling, and incessant beeping of the rest of the kitchen. Chicken fryers are essential, too, but biscuit makers are more entertaining. Hence, in future Bojangles', they'll work behind a pane of glass in a "Biscuit Theater," visible to anyone standing in line. (Fans of a competitor, North Carolina-based Biscuitville, point out that chain has had a similar biscuit theater for decades.)

Sure, the chicken is important, but the biscuit is the foundation on which everything else is built. Early on, when Bojangles' started selling biscuits with chicken, sales rose 60 percent. Today, four out of five people who come into Bojangles' buy a biscuit, and the Cheddar Bo and Bo-Berry biscuits have devoted followings. Biscuits have been important from the beginning. Cofounder Jack Fulk, who grew up in North Carolina, first owned a Hardee's in Wilkes County, and perfected his biscuit recipe in the late 1970s. The time was right in 1977 to launch his new venture: Southern culture was being commodified nationally through food and music. Jimmy Carter was in the White House. Chef Paul Prudhomme was on the rise, priming palates for Cajun spice. The Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd had been touring. And fast-food fried chicken, led by KFC, was becoming wildly popular - a trend captured in a country song by Billy Edd Wheeler:
They started a bunch of corporations
Everybody got into speculation
Chicken stock was so alarming
Nearly made Dow Jones go back to farmin'
In the midst of this Southern renaissance, Fulk and his business partner, Richard Thomas, opened the first Bojangles' at the corner of West Boulevard and South Tryon Street in Charlotte. It had no seating. It was not a great location, Fulk once said, but a bad location just meant the food had to be better. The store did well, and the staples of that original 1977 menu - biscuits, fried chicken, sweet tea - are still mostly as they were.

The major changes happened behind the scenes. There were 100 Bojangles' across the South by the time Fulk and Thomas sold the company to Horn & Hardart in 1981. The next year, the opening of a Bojangles' on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan drew the curiosity of The New Yorker, which quoted one executive as saying: "It's not like Hungarian goulash. Everyone likes chicken."

Horn & Hardart predicted Bojangles' would be the leading force in chicken by 1984. But after a fierce expansion, the company found itself overextended, and a few years later, many of the newly sprouted restaurants wilted away. The New York location eventually closed. The business changed hands three more times over the next three decades. Bojangles' was expanding again when a firm led by former Bank of America CEO Hugh McColl and Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson bought it in 2007. (Now you know why Richardson is often seen on TV sipping from a Bojangles' cup in his owner's box during Panthers games.)

Bojangles' became a public company in 2015, and Wall Street wants it to keep growing. But Rutledge, the CEO, says the company grew too quickly in the early '80s. This time, he says, Bojangles' will spread slowly, like honey on a biscuit, first in the Southeast, and then outward. The company thinks it could, someday, have 3,500 locations nationwide, which means it might lose an ingredient in its cult-like appeal: exclusivity. Other eateries with similar followings, like Skyline Chili in Cincinnati, Shake Shack in New York, and In-N-Out Burger out West, get some of their national mojo from scarcity. When you travel, eating at those restaurants "feels like an authentic way to experience a place," says Jonah Berger, a marketing professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

So if Bojangles' goes coast-to-coast, will its chicken-and-biscuit charm become diluted? "As these dishes start to spread, I think they start to lose their Southern identity," says Adrian Miller, author of Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time. For example, he says, look at sweet tea, a Southern staple that's now sold in all types of restaurants nationwide. Bojangles', as a corporation, still uses the word "Southern" a lot: The document that announced that the company would sell stock used the adjective 13 times. But back in that 1982 New Yorker magazine story, there's a particularly telling quote from a company executive trying to explain why New Yorkers would like dirty rice. "I don't necessarily call it a Southern food," he says. "I call it an American food from another part of the country."

Other parts of the country are, slowly, getting a taste of the cult of Bojangles'. Last year, when the Panthers made the Super Bowl, a Bojangles' logo-emblazoned SUV loaded up with sweet tea road-tripped from company headquarters in Charlotte to the game in California, a site more than 2,000 miles away from the closest Bojangles'.

Thanks @Bojangles1977 for going above and beyond. Follow along with their journey to Santa Clara #Tea4PantherNation pic.twitter.com/ccWg0ADfRv

- PanthersPromos (@PanthersPromos) February 1, 2016

Airports in Atlanta and Charlotte, both major hubs full of far-flung travelers, have Bojangles' in their concourses. Some lucky fliers once got it for free. An online video shows a stunt from 2015: People are waiting at the baggage claim in Charlotte, the buzzer goes off, the conveyor moves, and out come yellow Bo Boxes filled with chicken. The travelers snatched them up. (They did, also, get their luggage.)

I eat Bojangles' about once a month, but my first taste came in 2005, when I moved to Charlotte and joined Big Brothers Big Sisters. My match, Malik, was 12 years old. We'd do the requisite activities - go to movies, talk, check out my office - but I began to see that he was using our outings as an excuse to get chicken and biscuits. Once, he noticed the garage door opener in my car and asked what it did. I told him. After a moment of deep thought, he declared: "You know what would be awesome? If every time you pushed that button, Bojangles' appeared."

You don't really need a button to make Bojangles' appear in the Carolinas. They're everywhere. Ever notice how Bojangles' tend to be on the right-hand side of the road when you drive to work? That's no accident. The company knows you're hungry, don't have time to turn left, and a biscuit for breakfast sounds mighty good. Bojangles' ads proclaiming "It's Bo Time" blanket the airwaves. Many Charlotte-Mecklenburg high school students graduate at Bojangles' Coliseum. When the UNC basketball team hits 100 points, Bojangles' around North Carolina offer two sausage biscuits for $1, often leading to "we want biscuits" chants inside the Dean Dome late in games. If you're older, you may remember the company for something else: In 1989, Bojangles' was one of the only restaurants open immediately after Hurricane Hugo hit. Some of them used propane to cook.

Bojangles' comes standard on the North Carolina campaign trail. American Idol singer-turned-politician Clay Aiken claimed that he gained 30 pounds while running for Congress in 2014 thanks, in part, to the Bojangles' drive-through. (He's since lost the weight.) It's also been used as a way to try to bridge the partisan divide. In 2013, a young Democrat testifying before a committee of mostly Republican lawmakers tried to warm them up this way: "I love Cheerwine. I love Bojangles'. I love NASCAR. I love barbecue. I love the great state of North Carolina."

The chicken is important, but the biscuit is the foundation on which everything is built.

People say a lot about Bojangles', but Bojangles' also says a lot about us. The people who eat there are representative of modern North Carolina, spanning every race, income bracket, and age. In many small towns, it's the only place that feels Southern among the chain restaurants and burger joints that have taken over business strips and interstate off-ramps. If you choose to see the South with honest eyes, says John T. Edge, the director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, you see that Bojangles' is an example of modern Southern cuisine. "It delivers this food we associate with heart and somebody's grandmama," he says, "and delivers it through a drive-thru." Sure, it may not be the best fried chicken and biscuits you ever ate, but it's the one you eat most often. And for that reason, it tastes like home.

Earlier this year, on Brandon's advice, I got in my car and drove two hours to Selma, passing at least a dozen other perfectly good Bojangles' along the way. The restaurant there sits between an electrical substation and a convenience store, and is within sight of a Wendy's, McDonald's, Cook Out, Popeyes, Waffle House, KFC, Shoney's, and Dunkin' Donuts. That's a lot of competition.

Inside, it looks pretty much the way Brandon described it. The carpet is maroon; the booths are well-used. There is stained glass above the wood paneling and transom windows that separate the line from the dining room, which is half full at a quarter till noon, and keeps filling up. The drive-thru line wraps halfway around the building. A Muzak version of "Smooth Operator" plays softly as I wait in line between a few wisecracking teenagers and a pair of gray-haired ladies with perms.

I order a Cajun Filet Biscuit combo, and the teenage girl behind the counter is deliberate in the way she fills up my Patio Red Cherry cola, waiting for the fizz to subside before topping it off. I sit by myself, trying to tell if the chicken is perfectly crisp, if the biscuit is fluffy enough, if the fries are properly seasoned. But after a few moments, I just finish my meal, and feel satisfied not really knowing if this location is the greatest of them all. Instead, all I can think of is an online reply I got when I asked which restaurant is better than the rest. "The best Bojangles'," it read, "is the Bojangles' I get to eat."

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How Bojangles' Became a Southern Obsession - Our State Magazine

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There are more than 600 Bojangles' locations, but the best one of them all sits just off the Interstate 95 exit in Selma. That is the opinion of Brandon Sanders, a 36-year-old basketball trainer. I thought all Bojangles' were the same; the ones in Asheville should taste like the one in Farmville.

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The Seafood Festival was a place for families, regardless of age, to come together with common interests which included fried food, art, rides, and the Morehead City Waterfront view. It was a community-based event where everyone knew each others and most of the participants/patrons were locals (more broadly North Carolinians).

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North Carolina Seafood Festival 2016 - Morehead City, North Carolina - Oct. 2, 2016

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Sights and sounds of the 30th annual 2016 North Carolina Seafood Festival held each year at Morehead City, NC on the waterfront. Vendor's booths, Crafts, Seafood, Carnival Rides, Local Wine tasting, Boats, Cars and lots of food. Beautiful fall day in October one of my favorite events of the year.

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Atlantic Beach was the first place I actually lived even though I was born in Morehead City, but honestly they were interchangeable and separated only by a HUGE bridge. This picture is my brother and I circa 2001 in Atlantic Beach's local newspaper.  Atlantic Beach is clearly seen in the background.

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Though my family started as a nuclear type family (mom, dad, siblings) the family structure shifted greatly when it became just my mother, my brother, and myself.  We were always looked at as a trio with each of us protecting the other.  Later in life it came to light that unlike my friends' parents, she was raising two kids on her own. This only brought the three of us closer.

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My brother and I were close since he was born 18 months after me.  We bond over our cultural upbringing which includes listening to classic rock, playing video games, and watching movies.  Halloween is our favorite holiday (our costumes were hand made for years). Respect, responsibility, manners were all family-learned values. Family ALWAYS comes first.

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Growing up I lived in a lower SES household.  My mom watched us while my father provided for the household (I do not have pictures of him due to a lack of his presence in my current life).  Though we were considered "poor" I never had to get a job to help provide for the family.  Luckily, we were introduced to my Auntie M (great aunt).  She took us on trips around the country.  She was good to us and provided us with clothes every year.

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I never had a religious background due to elders in our family that practiced Catholicism making my mom uncomfortable. Though I do not identify with any religion I am spiritually driven. This openness allowed me to create my own identity without the possible (not definite) restraints of organized religion.  Happiness and faith in the humans ability to achieve that happiness through intangible concepts is more important than dedicating your life to a higher power.

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From Academy Award nominated director Roko Belic, HAPPY takes us on a journey from the swamps of Louisiana to the slums of Kolkata in search of what really makes people happy. Combining real life stories from around the world and powerful interviews with leading scientists in happiness research, HAPPY explores the secrets behind out most valued emotion.

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Ultimately, the lack of religious faith allowed me to explore my sexual orientation from the age of 12.  There was a lack of representation of the LGBTQIA community in Morehead City.  Not only was it liberating, but became one of the most important facets in my life of speaking out against wrongful treatment of this vibrant community.  I became a single voice for a community and did not care about the consequences.  This prompted others to find their voice as well.  I was the only junior that attended prom with my significant other of the same sex.

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Westminster Maryland High School Community

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Westminster Maryland High School Community

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Unfortunately, being so sure about my orientation made the intersectionality of my being fade into the background. I was lucky to attend a high school (Westminster High School) that enforced acceptance.
(Note: my brother is in this video sporting the Misfits shirt).

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Uploaded by Kelsey Thomas on 2015-04-29.