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.