Posted on 05/22/2005 2:16:33 PM PDT by right said fred
Rednecks: The Virtues Thereof
Cornell As Evolutionary Miscalculation
May 22, 2005
There is a lot of snot and malice about rednecks on the internet. Most of it comes from such cornflowers and honeysuckles as college professors, other witless suburban nonentities, and assorted twits in cities. By “redneck,” these bundles of intellectual lingerie seem to mean anyone without a college degree who can hang a door or lube his car.
One of them, some sort of biochemical rascal, figured that rednecks were examples of poor evolutionary fitness—compared, I guess, to him. Now, that’s a stretch.
Tell you about rednecks. They’re probably the only people in the whole country that ain’t unfit. What used to be Davy Crockett’s country today is full mostly of folk who can’t do anything for themselves. They call someone else to fix the plumbing, shoot the burglar, gap their plugs, build their houses, get their kids off drugs. If the cat dies they need a pet-loss grief-management counselor. From a redneck’s point of view, the United States is turning fast into people like those nasty white grubs that nekkid savages in New Guinea eat, only with legs.
I know the breed—rednecks, not grubs. I grew up with them, in King George County, Virginia, and in Athens, Alabama in 1957. Back then I thought I was Huck Finn. I may have been right. Certainly the evidence favored the proposition. I’d run through the woods like a Southern Mowgli with a slingshot and later got drunk with the country boys in high school and drove like three dam fools, buy one and get two free. We hunted, and crabbed in the Potomac, and such like. We called people from Massachusetts “Damyanks,” or “targets.”
Now, the people in KG were either farmers or fishermen. They could build a crab boat from scratch. Try it. What they were, really, was versatile. They’d snatch an old engine from a junkyard Chevy and rebuild it, convert it to marine, and mount it in the boat. They changed their own transmissions, replaced clutch plates, wired the barns they built. They could run a farm, keep old tractors going, blast a stump, raise hogs and slaughter them. They knew guns, and had them. They could hunt, shoot, and fish. They were tough, cut cordwood and split logs and dug foundations. If they wanted a wall, they laid the brick. If something broke, they fixed it.
Maybe they came up a little short on iambic pentameter. Didn’t seem to hurt’em none.
Now, if an asteroid hit Boston, which would be a good idea, and all the International Safeways and designer-cheese stores went tits-up, and the repair shops and gas stations that do things for all that human okra up there that needs someone else to water it, and if people had to take care of themselves like grownups…how long do you think the English department at Cornell would last?
Too long, yes. Maybe minutes. Think of it: Five hundred BMWs descending on the drug stores, people squealing and clawing and snatching out eyeballs to steal the last Prozac. Why, they couldn’t live without sour white wine not nearly as good as Ripple and those cheeses with names like Chartreuse. A week later they’d be eating their lawns. (I don’t oppose this, understand. I’d sell tickets.)
People in the country wouldn’t blink. They might wonder how to start an asteroid so they could get Washington too.
If some upscale flowerbed like Fairfax County outside DC ever had to deal with hard times, it would the best show since Aunt Sally sat on that ant nest. It isn’t just that they can’t do anything. They can’t even think about doing anything. I mean, suppose that after the asteroid hit the cops had other things to do, like look after their families, and a larcenous parasitic lawyer encountered some Diversity with a knife in its hand and an itch for his television or daughters, what would he do? Get extra therapy? Hit him with a rubber stamp? Say, “Can’t we talk about this?”
Now, in the country, people had a slightly less lenient attitude toward having their homes invaded. Nobody ever shot anybody, much anyway. People didn’t think it was civilized. They did have dogs and shotguns and rifles. Further, they had the backbone to use them if the need arose. Which is why it didn’t.
Now, I reckon professors are pretty smart. After all they’re picked for it—except in departments whose names end in “Studies,” and Departments of Education, where they’re picked for being stupid. And in some other departments, if brains were oil, the inmates would be about a quart low: Anthropology, psychology, sociology, cosmetology science. The really smart ones—there must be a couple of dozen—might be able to handle an asteroid strike.
But I doubt it. The dinosaurs didn’t. What happens is, most people grow up helpless in some suburb. It isn’t their fault. They have to wear helmets and life-preservers to walk around the block and probably adult diapers and if they are boys they like as not get estrogen injections so they won’t be. They can’t wrestle or play dodge ball because it’s violent. They can’t play Cowboys and Engines because it’s insensitive. Then they get a job in some office fiddling with forms. And that’s all they do. Ever.
A redneck has a life, lots of times anyway. A buddy of mine grew up in a tough section of a Yankee city, where the deciding factor in a philosophical discussion was a good right hook. He went to Viet Nam for a couple of tours in spec ops, spent ten years in the fishing fleets of Alaska, and retired as a fireman-EMT. He knows motorcycles, scuba, and NASCAR.
A man like that has some depth to him. He knows what life is. He has seen it. You can talk to him about the street trades—cops, fire, paramedics—and he knows what happens. He knows Nana Plaza and small boats in cold oceans and Saigon in the bad times. You don’t get that with a biochemist, master of aldehydes. A perfesser is like one of those polished jewels of the British upper classes, except bright, and pig-ignorant of the world. I mean, if you spend ten years in labs to get your meal ticket, you don’t have time to amount to much.
Of course you might cure cancer. And I guess penicillin is pretty good stuff. Maybe everybody’s got some virtue, even professors. They still can’t cure an asteroid.
I especially laughed when in a fit of forgetfullness, Fred attacked the stereotypical occupation of the female redneck: The beautician. Other than that it was the same rehashed "Country folk are better than city people" trash that pops up from time to time.
My sociology professor would be impressed that I actually paid attention in class. She thought I was in there as a troublemaker. But then again, she brought it on herself when she said, "I don't want to be the only one talking in here - if you disagree with something I say, then say so."
I disagreed with a lot of what she said. But I have to give her some credit - she was pro-death penalty.
I can slaughter animals, ride horses and play guitar. A five mile hike is a good way to spend a Sunday morning and three days in the woods is a vacation for me and my friends.
If you think you have to be from south of Baltimore to be self-sufficient you've displayed enough ignorance for one day.
Nam Vet
I'm a redneck, it's a redneck nation
"I don't want to be the only one talking in here - if you disagree with something I say, then say so."
It's a Southern thing..you wouldn't understand. J/K
There are plenty of "Yankee rednecks".
I have friends in western upstate NY that are as hardy and self-sufficient as any southerner ever born.
I'd bet you live somewhere *outside* of the cities of New England.
That would really classify you as more of a "mountain man" then redneck but it's all semantics, anyway....:)
It's really more of an "urban" vs. "rural" issue.
"Redneck" is just a handy, convenient label....:)
Case in point;
My ex was born 2 miles north of the Mason-Dixon but grew up [barely] suburban in western MD.
If disaster had struck, he wouldn't have survived a week.
He was literally helpless in "rough" conditions.
My husband grew up in extremely citified Federal Hill, Providence RI.
He's lived everywhere and learned all he knows on his own.
If disaster struck, his only setback would be getting gas for a generator to run his welder and there's nothing he -can't- do, build, make or fix.
No matter what comes, he'll take care of it and me.
I also can hunt, fish, split wood, grow food, etc and between us, we'd do just fine.
Self-sufficiency is *not* the sole property of any geographic location.
"Redneck" is a state of mind....:)
Great stuff - thanks.
I urge all you you to read Fred's list of articles.
Country people are the best. Call them rednecks if you want, it's becoming a compliment. They are the folks that make the red states red.
OTOH, there are plenty of rural "rednecks" that live in drunken squalor and would just as soon shoot you or steal from you as look at you, they are pretty much indistinguishable from inner city thugs.
fred can be very witty.
-LS
LOL! We also sell swampland (Own a piece of Florida!), and sell them t-shirts, stuffed baby gators, and pink lawn jockeys to take back home.
Yep; they're passing them out when you log in with your first cup of coffee in the morning. I've noticed lately that more and more are lining up for them every day.
You know that ain't a half bad idea. we've got enough of 'em rummaging around at yard sales and the flea markets here in NC looking for that 'country look' somebody could make a good little bit
Ain't it the truth?
Great song.
/jasper
Southern by the grace of God, I used to be a college instructor, of English, nonetheless, but I can make bread from scratch, spin and weave, knit things the way people did in the 1700s, make fire from flint and steel, sew servicable clothes with no sewing machine or patterns, the way they used to, tell you about the world's great literature, discuss something of cosmology, and reassemble just about anything I can take apart, including a large part of my car.
I will always say y'all, and am just as likely to say, "He ain't got none," while discussing the fine points of why Tarleton deserved to get his butt kicked, or how you can sing most of Emily Dickenson's poetry to the tune of the Yellow Rose of Texas...while crocheting a doily at the same time.
I don't know what this makes me. Confused?
There is truth in what you post.
"I would have less of a problem with rednecks and certain other of my southern fellow citizens if they didn't have such a chip on their shoulder...."
I think we got us a sow here........
Hey Jasper - it is a great song. The boys came back with a rockin' album. Grits and Gravy - good Southern Rock by Great Americans.
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