BS: Not All the Rednecks are Down South

Subject: RE: BS: Not All the Rednecks are Down South
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 05:19 PM

Be glad, Jeri, that you do not reside in Blind River, Ontario, next to the hovel where Shane and Don McBride live. The party never ends.

Subject: RE: BS: Not All the Rednecks are Down South
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 04:35 PM

I am always very uncomfortable with that term and encourage people to retire it. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Not All the Rednecks are Down South
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 03:23 PM

that is interesting, Kat.

I had always assumed that "redneck" referred to the sunburnt neck of the sharecropper working in the fields all day.

Subject: RE: BS: Not All the Rednecks are Down South
From: kendall
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 03:21 PM

Jeri, did you say a Moose plows your driveway?

Subject: RE: BS: Not All the Rednecks are Down South
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 03:01 PM

I don't know if they were rednecks or just dumb, but our neighbours across the street in a residential subdivision in WY (where everyone's necks are red!)shot off their guns on New Year's Eve, every year! That I can do without, no mater where I live.

Did ya'll know "redneck" came from miners wearing neckerchiefs? (Don't yell at me, I know you knew that, sorry!**bg**) Here's some interesting background on it, anyway from HERE (lots more to the essay):

The following essay explores how the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) and rival miners' unions appropriated both the term redneck and its literal manifestation, the red bandana, in order to build multiracial unions of white, black, and immigrant miners in the strike-ridden coalfields of northern and central Appalachia between 1912 and 1936. The origin of redneck to mean "a union man" or "a striker" remain uncertain, but according to linguist David W. Maurer, the former definition of the word probably dates at least to the second decade of the twentieth century, if not earlier (1936:19). The use of redneck to designate "a union member" was especially popular during the 1920s and 1930s in the coal-producing regions of southern West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, and western Pennsylvania, where the word came to be specifically applied to a miner who belonged to a labor union. For example, the term can be found throughout McAllister Coleman and Stephen Raushenbush's 1936 socialist proletarian novel, Red Neck, which recounts the story of a charismatic union leader named Dave Houston and an unsuccessful strike by his fellow union miners in the fictional coalfield town of Laurel, Pennsylvania (1936:151, 155, 246, 304). The word's varied usage can be seen in the following two examples from the book. "I'm not much to be proud of," Houston admits to his admiring girlfriend Madge in one scene. "I'm just a red necked miner like the rest" (ibid. 155). In another scene, a police captain curses Houston as a "God-damned red neck" during a fruitless jailhouse interrogation, before savagely beating him with a sawed-off chair-leg (ibid. 304).

Subject: RE: BS: Not All the Rednecks are Down South
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 02:51 PM

surely do appreciate the kind offer, Susan, but I reck'n I'll pass on that, thank y'all kindly ...

Subject: RE: BS: Not All the Rednecks are Down South
From: wysiwyg
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 11:01 AM

was somewhat disconcerted to see a buck-toothed character in dungarees (US= "bib and braces" ?), sporting a long hunting rifle and grinning at me from a distance of about six inches.   

Scenes from "Deliverance" flashed through my mind (as they do on such occasions), but he turned out to be quite harmless, and was intent only on shooting game for his pot.

Yes, it often turns out that our stereotypes limit our ability to perceive commonality. (It's "bibs," or "bib overalls," or "overalls" BTW.)

I guess it's amusing to poke fun where we can, and thereby exalt ourselves another mini-notch, but we'd be dead up here in the Pennsyltucky part of our state without our "redneck" neighbors who have seen, and survived, it all-- including the "funny" visitors to the area who are kind enough to leave all their tourist bucks in our economy. Do we all dress a little red-neckier and talk a little more oddly in hunting and leaf-peeping seasons, to provide local color for the touriists? Sure! :~)

Oh, you prefer "Deliverance"? We can deliver that, too. :~)

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Not All the Rednecks are Down South
From: GUEST,Wesley S
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 10:32 AM

I sell industrial metals for a living. One day I had a guy on the phone asking me "What type of brass do you use to make a cannon?" It seems like his friends at the local VFW hall wanted to build their own cannon to shoot off on holidays. He was suprised that I didn't know in the first place - and was reluctent to sell him anything in the second place. "Well folks - sorry about the explosion that got those guys killed - but that guy Wesley that sold me the brass said it would work just fine!!" No thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Not All the Rednecks are Down South
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 08:57 AM

LOL...

Subject: RE: BS: Not All the Rednecks are Down South
From: Jeri
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 08:34 AM

Bobert, I meant that the guy hangout was a guy hangout. The blowing-up-and-setting-on-fire thing was the redneck part of it. If you do that in the city or even the 'burbs, there are going to be police involved.

Lest it sound like I was complaining, I wasn't. This neighbor is also the one who pointed out where the deer were hanging out before it got quiet enough to hit the apples, he told me when he saw a moose coming out of the woods behind my house and he plows my driveway every winter. I did have them laughing when I told them they needed Jeff Foxworthy. "You might be a redneck if your neighbors come over to ask, "Did you do that on PURPOSE?!"

Subject: RE: BS: Not All the Rednecks are Down South
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 08:03 AM

Shoot, Jeri!?!?!?...

A beer machine and a big TV??? That ain't a redneck thing...it's a male thing...

Sounds like good wholesome fun to me...

Especially startin' the fire with a bottle of gas... I use kerosene myself for my fires but...gas!!! Now that's gotta be a blast an' a half...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Not All the Rednecks are Down South
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 07:52 AM

He was definately paddling in the shallow end of that pool!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Not All the Rednecks are Down South
From: kendall
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 07:27 AM

Murray, That guy's gene pool needs more chlorine.

Subject: RE: BS: Not All the Rednecks are Down South
From: Morticia
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 06:21 AM

I thought it was going to be the start of a new Reg boys and Paw story, Jeri...starting a fire with a molotov cocktail just begs for Spaw's yarn spinning, doesn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Not All the Rednecks are Down South
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 06:08 AM

I will never forget the day I stopped off in Maine to have a look at the construction of a covered bridge, and was standing at the entrance looking back for a few moments after having walked the length of the bridge. When I turned round I was somewhat disconcerted to see a buck-toothed character in dungarees (US= "bib and braces" ?), sporting a long hunting rifle and grinning at me from a distance of about six inches.   

Scenes from "Deliverance" flashed through my mind (as they do on such occasions), but he turned out to be quite harmless, and was intent only on shooting game for his pot. He seemed quite fascinated by the fact I was from Scotland, but I don't think he had the faintest idea where Scotland actually was.

I recounted the story to somebody later who opined that Maine was just like Arkansas, but with a different accent.

Subject: RE: BS: Not All the Rednecks are Down South
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 05:45 AM

I used to play in a country music band that gigged the miners welfares and suchlike up and down the land.

The Ghostriders Club in Leeds and (I can think of several others) used to finish off the evening playing American Trilogy, hands on their hearts, holding Old Glory aloft.

Subject: RE: BS: Not All the Rednecks are Down South
From: Bert
Date: 23 Nov 07 - 02:52 AM

LOL Jeri.

I have a friend in Dallas who was making a rocket engine and testing it in his back yard. The resulting explosion blew a big crater in his yard. when the police came around he said "Oh yes we heard that, What was it?"

Subject: BS: Not All the Rednecks are Down South
From: Jeri
Date: 22 Nov 07 - 09:40 PM

I came home from work yesterday and sat down by the computer. Shortly thereafter, I heard a decent-sized explosion that shook my roof and rattled my windows. I went outside to make sure my roof was still all there.

Here's a bit of background. It's been a strange week. A few days earlier, I heard shooting that sounded like it was just outside. I went out and didn't see anything at first, but heard rustling footsteps coming towards me down the road, then I saw a shadowy figure across the street. I felt a bit apprehensive and went back inside. Later that same night, I went back outside and startled three deer with substance abuse problems that had been getting loaded on my neighbor's ground-fall apples. I then thought the guy with the gun had been trying to bag a drunk deer under the apple tree, which didn't seem very fair at all.

So, back to the 'boom'. I went outside and the guys across the street had come out of the guy hangout that masquerades as a garage. No car has ever been inside, but it has a beer machine and an enormous plasma TV. And a second floor. There are a whole bunch of pickup trucks parked outside whenever there's a baseball or football game on. There are Red Sox signs plastered all over it. The guys were laughing and talking about the loud noise, but they didn't seem either upset or proud. I then heard some loud voices over at the next-door neighbors'.

I walked over, and as I got closer, heard someone say, "Hey I heard that, and I was INSIDE!" AHA! I walked up and shouted in an impressed sort of way, "Did you guys do that on PURPOSE?!"
They seemed surprised that I'd heard it.
My neighbor replied, "Yep, I just started the brush pile on fire."
I asked, "With what - a grenade?!"
"No," he says, "Just a burning rag in a bottle with some gas."
So I think, "OK, not a grenade but a Molotov cocktail." Well, that explained the flames shooting 40' into the night sky in back of his house, because I was going to ask about that next.

It was nice talking to my neighbors again. I found out that it had been him shooting at a porcupine that had taken up residence in a favorite dog-walking area. The deer were somewhat safe, if reckless.