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 fitnesscompared, I guess, to him. Now, thats a stretch.
Tell you about rednecks. Theyre probably the only people in the whole country that aint unfit. What used to be Davy Crocketts country today is full mostly of folk who cant 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 rednecks 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 breedrednecks, 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. Id 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. Theyd 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. Didnt seem to hurtem 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 couldnt live without sour white wine not nearly as good as Ripple and those cheeses with names like Chartreuse. A week later theyd be eating their lawns. (I dont oppose this, understand. Id sell tickets.)
People in the country wouldnt 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 isnt just that they cant do anything. They cant 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, Cant 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 didnt 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 didnt.
Now, I reckon professors are pretty smart. After all theyre picked for itexcept in departments whose names end in Studies, and Departments of Education, where theyre 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 onesthere must be a couple of dozenmight be able to handle an asteroid strike.
But I doubt it. The dinosaurs didnt. What happens is, most people grow up helpless in some suburb. It isnt 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 wont be. They cant wrestle or play dodge ball because its violent. They cant play Cowboys and Engines because its insensitive. Then they get a job in some office fiddling with forms. And thats 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 tradescops, fire, paramedicsand he knows what happens. He knows Nana Plaza and small boats in cold oceans and Saigon in the bad times. You dont 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 dont have time to amount to much.
Of course you might cure cancer. And I guess penicillin is pretty good stuff. Maybe everybodys got some virtue, even professors. They still cant cure an asteroid.
HEHEHE!! LONG LIVE REDNECKS!
A true Hoosier redneck is more likely to be found at their favorite dirt track on Saturday night holding the stub to a $10 ticket, a can of Bud and dodging dirt clods flying on the rear tire of a Sprint car than in the grandstands of Talledega with a $75-$100 ticket and a $7.50 beer.
I'll trust your judgment on this. I must have been seeing the fake Hoosier rednecks.
Yep, they sure did. I hear that Skynyrd is due to release a new album next year.
In the mean time, The VanZants (Donny and Johnny) just released a new country album called "Get Right With The Man". There's a whole lotta truth in this one.
If you 'puter is wired for sound, go to the site below, click on 'MUSIC' and take a listen to the samples.
/jasper
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