I’ve never really thought of myself as a redneck, but maybe, just maybe, that's who I really am.
The comedian Jeff Foxworthy made millions poking lighthearted fun at the culture of rednecks. I just re-read that sentence. I am not sure rednecks have culture, but they definitely have a culture— and character.
To be sure, I am descended from generations of hard working, salt of the earth, hardshell farmers, whose necks turned a deep red under the blistering, baking, south Georgia sun. That’s where the description of rednecks originally came from.
My maternal grandparents, E.B. and Georgia Jones, raised a family of nine growing tobacco and raising chickens on a 63acre farm purchased from my Grandma’s oldest sister, Aunt Ethel. It was, in turn, purchased by her from my great-grandparents, James “Jim” and Nancy Griffin Lee, as sort of a dowry when she married and left home. Grandpa Jones augmented the farm wages by working at the Babcock and Wilcox plant in Brunswick.
My paternal grandparents, Rollie and Roanna Deal, raised their four sons on a 78-acre tract growing corn and peanuts and raising cows and hogs.
I say all that to point out that you could make the case there is some redneck in my pedigree.
By the time my brother and sister and I came along, making a living on that small a farm was no longer viable. Daddy went to work selling John Deere parts and Mama joined him. My sister became an apartment manager and my brother went into education with flying on the side. I made my living by the word, as a journalist, and then was called in to the ministry.
But, maybe we are still rednecks. Maybe, just maybe, the inner redneck still comes out in us.
Like rednecks, we have a car sitting up on blocks out at the shop.
For a while, like rednecks, my Grandparents put the new television on top of the old television because the cabinet in the old one was “too good to throw away.”
Speaking of being frugal, like rednecks, yes, both grandparents had sets of bowls that had cool whip and butter spread names on the sides. Survivor of the hard times of the Great Depression— one was known to save Solo cups for reuse and the other saved tin foil, pronounced “ten full.”
Like rednecks, the stock market in New York didn’t phase us none, but Cousin Vera Rogers Miles’ stock market was the place we sold cows and hogs to come up with “a little cash money.”
These things might be humorous now, but they simply illustrate to me a hardy, industrious people who worked from can to can’t and relied on their smarts and God’s grace to make do and get by and improve their lives and take care of their families.
It rubbed off on me. Just the other day, one of the big county trash cans walked right out in the street in front of me and clobbered and bashed my side mirror.
The mirror still works and is still adjustable, but it hangs down like a broken wing where you can’t really see the “objects that are closer than they appear.”
My brother came up with the idea and put it into action, but I approved it, too.
Duct tape. You might be a redneck if your cars mirrors are held on with duct tape.
Yep, and I am proud of it, too.
• Jason Deal is News Editor for The Blackshear Times. Reach him at jdeal@blacksheartimes. news.
