Redneck….

In the strictest sense of the word, Herman was a redneck.  He grew up poor in the rural South in a small house crowded with seven brothers and sisters. He was raised on a farm and never learned to read well because a formal education was not an option for him. But he learned to play music. The piano, the church organ, the guitar, and the fiddle helped him make each day his masterpiece.  He worked hard, raised a family, started a church and well into his 80's died, well liked and well loved.  He was one of my favorite uncles and I admired him so much.

The last time I saw Herman he was playing his new mandolin. I saw it leaning in the corner and asked him about it so he taught me a few chords, which I strummed clumsily, making an irritating noise.  I am educated but very musically challenged - and he knew it.  When I asked him "Can you play it?"  his typically humble response was "Maybe a little bit."  And buddy, he played it!!  With a toothy grin, he played it, happy to show me a thing or two and see the surprised look on my face. Two months later I got word that Herman had passed away.

"Redneck" is a term usually reserved for a rural poor white person of the Southern United States.  It appeared in 1893 as a description of the poor southern farmers of the Democratic Party who frequently showed up with their necks red from exposure to the sun to rally against rich men and their politics. North Carolina has a total population of 10 million people; as of the last census 72% of the population are white and 17.5% of the population are living under the poverty level.  That calculates out to a lot of rednecks.

Redneck is usually a derogatory word.  You’ve heard the jokes.  You are a redneck if…. the hood and one door are a different color from the rest of your car.  Or, you are a redneck if your momma has “ammo” on her Christmas list.  Or, you are a redneck if you own a home with wheels on it and several cars without one.  According to Miss South Carolina at the last Miss USA Pageant, 20 percent of those enjoying our neighboring state reside in mobile homes, because “that’s how we roll!!”.  North Carolina is not far behind.  Over thirteen percent of us live in mobile homes. Barely more than a tobacco spit from my home in the third wealthiest community in North Carolina sits a typical trailer park.  It looks real nice. 

Many of my family ancestors were poor white folks from North Carolina and Tennessee and Arkansas and Virginia.  I know them to be God-fearing, hard workers with conservative values and strong family ties who love country music and drive pickup trucks so, despite the bad jokes, I don’t take offense to the term redneck. And after all is said and done, they usually don't either. But use it prudently for several reasons - there are many of them, they have guns, and they would rebel if seriously provoked. They fought in the Revolutionary War, battled in the Civil War, and tussled with any other rascal who wanted to rastle ‘em. When their little redneck DNA, wearing blue jeans and boots with hair tied back in a red bandana, peeks out of my genetic makeup and shouts like Brad Paisley, “Let’s Get A Little Mud On The Tires”, I just smile and say “sure thing”.  It’s in my blood - and everyone knows you can’t deny the DNA.

We had us a few visitors from California last month, and took them on a Sunday tour. In a rented stretch utility van and with country music blaring, I hauled them on an excursion across the state line into South Carolina and back again to see the sights.  It was so cold chickens were begging to be fried.  I put on my heavy jeans, boots, a flannel shirt and my ball cap, and while Zac Brown sang “Ain’t In No Hurry”, we showed them where you could buy fireworks.  We showed them the ABC store where you could purchase liquor – any day except Sunday.  We flaunted where you could get cheap gas and fresh barbecue - at the same place.  We pointed out our Southern Baptist church with the charismatic evangelical preacher who had recently re-baptized me and my family by totally submerging us one by one in a tub of water one memorable Sunday morning.  

We then paraded by the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and after passing an ominous sign that read “Evacuation Route” – from what I am still wonderin' – we steered through horse country and a community called Indian Land. Through the leafless trees this time of year you could see the expansive properties with large homes surrounded by white plank fences and speckled with stables and horses and goats and cows and even a donkey.  We saw tractors.  We warned them they were fixing to see a real trailer park.  And they did, too.    

My daughter and her new movie star husband rode with us and I am sure were reminded of when we took her then Los Angeles boyfriend to Myrtle Beach. We shot off fireworks. We caught fireflies. We listened to thunderstorms roll in. We sat on my front step and drank ice cold beer and waved at the neighbors as they strolled by. We toured a Wings souvenir store and, shocked to see it, he bought a token coffee cup with the Confederate flag on it for his mom and a genuine Confederate cap to show his dad.  Coming home we followed the Cotton Trail in our truck to see the historic sites on large southern plantations surviving a time when cotton was king.

Years before, the redneck had peeked out again. On a Sunday morning picking up my wife from the airport I cranked up our dented pickup truck with the crack in the windshield and, excited about the day’s events, rolled down my windows and turned up the volume.  We were almost late to our son’s baccalaureate graduation ceremony at a big city church.  With the windows down and country music blaring, I sped in my pickup truck, drinking sweet tea and driving NASCAR fast to make the event as Toni gradually got naked in the front seat beside me while changing from her travel clothes into a respectable church dress. Naked. In a pickup truck. On a Sunday. On The Billy Graham Parkway.

Recalling my childhood back when a suburban lifestyle gradually replaced our modest rural heritage like a rising creek rinsing away the dust from unpaved roads, I remembered riding horses bareback and plowing vegetable gardens. Lord, that's where I come from! But in stages I became more like city folk.  Playing video games, driving a sports car, and getting through college replaced a simpler life as a country boy.  Then I witnessed my kids enjoying some redneck behavior like jumping from a train trestle into an Arkansas river, tubing down a homemade Georgia mudslide, and tying some boats together in the middle of a big ol’ Missouri lake to form a giant party raft. And loving country music festivals. And talking to their relatives with a sudden southern twang mysteriously appearing in their voices.  I chuckled to myself, muttering, “You can’t deny the DNA.”

Over a year after Herman died, I received a special call from his son, George.  Not knowing anything about the last time I had seen his father, George said  "We were going through some of Daddy's things and wanted to give you something of his to remember him by."  He added, "Daddy had always admired you for how hard you worked to finish your education. He would have wanted you to have this."  

Herman's mandolin. 

Life is like a good ol' country song, composed of multiple musical themes that rhythmically cycle in and out of our personal experience.  Energetic themes which jumpstart us to get to work, or to write, or to detail the truck.  Melancholy themes which encourage us to reminisce about family who have passed and remember days gone by.  And Redneck themes which, like Herman and his mandolin, give us heart and spirit and add character to our lives.

Rock Star….

Every time I look at an onion, I think of him.  He had this funny habit of sitting on his haunches, head up proudly, massive shoulders back, hairy chest thrown out like a proud peacock and the first time I saw him he was biting into a large raw onion like you or I might enjoy an apple.  His small brown eyes searched the horizon and his coarse black hair shielded his face from the sun. Autograph seekers crowded up like groupies at a rock concert, hoping to get a picture.  His smug expression rarely broke into a grin.  He walked with a brawny self-confidence that showed all what he thought about his position in life.  He owned this stage.  As I got closer to him, his menacing eyes avoided contact with mine. But I was captivated.  He was a rock star. And I could not wait to meet him.

Before beginning my job today, I had to visit with my department chairman.  His bearded assistant escorted me through a double-locked door marked ‘Employees Only’ and ‘Keep Out’ in red letters, and pointed down a long narrow hallway to an unassuming door at its end.  As the backstage door quietly shut, the crowd noise outside silenced.

“You will need to check in with him first thing every day.” his assistant said flatly, then added.  “Don’t worry about the smell.  You get used to it.”  

Handing me my security code and ID badge, he motioned me down the hallway.  

“Don’t look at his eyes.  He hates that.”  And he abruptly left.

I hadn’t noticed the smell until then.  A mixture of onions, ripe fruit and old wet towels tickled my palate like a trained sommelier.  My eyes reflexively teared up.  The door beckoned.  I studied the hallway.  Its cold cinder block wall on the right side rose fifteen feet to a brightly lit ceiling.  To the left was a complicated line of shiny rigid metal rods interlaced with strong wire leaving only two-inch spaces between and extending all the way from me to the door thirty feet away.  Puddles of water and wet spots dotted the concrete floor. Gripping my backpack a bit more tightly and taking a slow, deep breath, I held my nose and started down the corridor.

After two steps I could hear him breathing and my own breathing quickened.  The smell of onions intensified.  I felt his heart beating and sensed him studying me, knowing that at any minute we would finally meet.  I quickened my pace.  My shoes splashed along a puddle. 

“Don’t look.” I reminded myself.  “Don’t run.  Don’t slip.”

The cold metal bars shined to my left, and my right shoulder brushed the cinder block wall as the passage seemed to narrow.  The tiny hairs on my neck stood up.  My ears tingled.  I knew he was closer now.  My gait stiffened.  I could feel him.

The air thickened, like it gets as a big thunderstorm approaches.  The ground rumbled.  A deafening growl filled the hallway, echoing off the tight space and stunning my ears.  Still many steps from the door, but no turning back now, I hurried forward. Another primal roar sliced through the air, then a rush of black as I glimpsed him charging from behind the metal bars.  His body slammed against the shiny grill like a truck colliding with a train, but the bars held.  I felt his warm breath inches from my face and the smell of onions ripped through my nostrils.  

Opening my eyes just long enough to peek at him, I looked into his eyes.  Then, I ran. Thick droplets of spit dripped from my hair and face down my left ear as I fought to catch my breath.  I have to do this every day?

Responding to my frantic knock, my department chair opened his door.  

“So you met him?” he grinned cheerily.  “He doesn’t like males.”  

Too stunned to talk, I just stood there.

He handed me a towel.  “Next time you might want to cover up." 

He was a 400 pound silver back gorilla named Tomoka.  He was a rock star.  

And I met him.

**Tomoka was only the second gorilla born into captivity in the world, in 1961, about when I was born, at The Ape House @ The National Zoo, Washington, D.C.  After his severe arthritis was cured and his life saved by doctors there, Tomoka, a vegetarian,  looked like this in his prime, when I met him in 1982.

Making Lemonade….

Slumped in her exam chair, her eyes partially blocked by droopy brows and her face furrowed with wrinkles too many to count, Vivian locked her familiar gaze on mine.  This was her twentieth exam with me and she was closing in on her ninetieth birthday.  The weight of her chart was impressive; thick from decades of documentation for her growing list of medical problems, it told her story. 

She had been a dancer in her youth.  Eventually marrying and raising her children, she had lived to enjoy her grandchildren and even great grandchildren.  Recently she had buried her beloved husband.  Life had been fast and furious and full of miracles then, but now Vivian, her bones weak and her eyesight failing, did everything slowly.  With much effort she raised a crooked hand toward me and slowly wagging her aging index finger, she lifted her head a bit and gave me some advice.

“Do it while you’re young.” she warned with a rasp in her voice but a twinkle in her eyes.

This wasn’t the first time I had been given advice from my old folks. 

“Don’t work too hard,” one sage advised me. 

“Are you taking some time off?” other elders had quizzed.

“Getting old is not for sissies,” many, many had warned. 

This wise choir’s sad chorus was common - and relentless- so after years of hearing their refrain, I had listened. You hear that enough times, you just about have to. Heeding their stories of health failing, kids grown, family moved away, friends no longer living, and not feeling well enough to do much of anything, I felt a panic set in. 

“What are you doing in your spare time?” I began to ask my generation of patients searchingly.

“What spare time?” was their glum and almost universal response.

Blocking off time to make some memories became my mantra. Getting home early when I could, stretching a weekend into three days here or there, and planning some great experiences became a priority and helped our family create balance.

So today, I was ready for Vivian’s challenge.

On this perfect summer day, I had arranged for our two kids, ages 9 and 6, to set up a lemonade stand outside the door to my office.  Like two squirrels in a field of acorns, their excitement was palpable as we spent the evening before making gallons of the sweet thirst quencher that everyone loves as well as signs directing customers to a table full of cups and napkins.  We worked out with them how 50 cents a cup would be a fair and profitable charge. My wife and I filled a cooler with ice for them and instructed them in how to serve their customers without contaminating their drinks.  And we delivered the entire family project to my office entrance that morning for them to set up.

My office is busy.  Lots of patients and their families pass through those doors on any given day, so I knew business would be good for them.  But I felt guilty at the thought of my patients feeling trapped into buying something from my children.  So I secretly planted a large bowl of quarters at the checkout window with instructions to my staff to offer each of our patients the quarters as tokens to purchase lemonade as they left.

Thankful for the advice of Vivian and her comrades, and for their wisdom and courage inspiring me to play a bit harder, to hug a little longer, and to create as many magic moments as we can while we can, I directed her down the hallway.

“Vivian, when you leave today grab a couple of quarters at the checkout and 

buy some lemonade from my kids”,  I offered.  “My treat.”

With a quick and knowing grin, Vivian nodded her approval and disappeared unhurriedly down the hallway.

At the end of the day, I had two unsuspecting kids, as happy as tourists finding a deserted beach, gleefully splitting $37.50 for their day’s work.  And another memory to keep me warm when I get old.