"take a Dixie"

[George Thompson]

Bob Uecker, the radio broadcaster of the Milwaukee Brewers, is 76 and recovering from heart surgery.  The NYTimes of Saturday quotes him:
"We always joke abut this stuff," Uecker said, using a phrase to connote his mortality.  "Like if I ever took a Dixie on the road, don't send me home, keep me with the team, keep me on ice and then bring be back.  Hey, I want to come back with you guys."

This is not in HDAS, (which does have, under "Dixie" "whistle Dixie -- See whistle".  If only I could.)
How is it to be explained?  Connected with a Stephen Fosterish vision of Dixie as a mysterious land beyond?

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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