I’m meeting my grandfather for lunch on Friday. It’ll be the first time I’ve seen him in several years. He went all the way down the hate hole. Never heard him cuss but last time we talked he was using the N word.
He’ll be 87 soon. Most likely, I’ll never see him again. He’s going to find out we’re moving out of the south to yankee land.
Fuck it. He’s not the man I knew. He doesn’t have the wisdom I thought he did.
I hate it and it fucks me up. I’ve lost my people to hate and stupid. So fucking stupid. They all want to suck some orange cock. Fucking really? That’s your fucking Messiah? They didn’t actually fucking read the fucking book they claimed they believed in while shoving bullshit down my throat and the throats of any child they could get ahold of.
Fuck em. They could wake the fuck up if they choose to. They could read. They could think. I tried to tell them.
I’m real sad about it. Not a fucking thing I can do about it. They can live inside their lie holes.
Blackberry Winter has skipped two years. There are armadillos, geckos, and fire ants now. Those critters didn’t live here until things changed. The fucking woods smell and sound different now. They could wake the fuck up and quit listening to fox or their preacher but they choose not to.
I tried to tell them and they didn’t listen because they choose to be ignorant.
fuck em
Yes and no.
I’m country as a pinto bean sandwich. Yankees were people that lived in the north and talked different.
I used to have a lot of pride in my people. We are tough and proud. Able to endure heat that most people don’t understand. Stretch a penny and squeeze a dime, fix a truck with bailing wire, JB weld and a coke can. Kind to others, stop on the road and help someone broke down.
Collard greens, corn bread, catfish, and a mess of green beans. There’s bacon fat in the beans and they’ve been boiled down.
Black folks around, you say Ma’am and Sir to make sure they know you respect them. We’re all people.
I started reading, left home, and lived near a big city for 20 years.
I come from profound ignorance. There’s a good naturedness that seems to have left my people.
I think he’s saying that “southerners call northerners Yankees, but they don’t know that EVERYONE in the US is a Yankee once the confederacy lost, because not a single confederate soldier remained, reclaiming those states as Yankee territory and any citizen therein is a Yankee. Anyone who disagrees doesn’t remember the lesson Ol’ Sherman taught em”
Also, for what it’s worth, my family was from the south. My reunions and funerals and weddings all take place somewhere in a holler with 1 Walmart about 40 minutes down the mountain.
My uncle once said, and my mother agreed, in relation to gay men “I wish they’d put em all on an island somewhere, they’d be happier that way”.
But I wasn’t lucky enough to know my grandpa as a man of wisdom. He’d said enough stupid shit, or abided it in his home when his children begged for '“Barack Houssein O’bummer’s” birth certificate. He had a dog named Blackie, that I called Blackie because I wouldn’t dare say it’s real name if someone asked.
What was good in them did all truly disappear in front of me day by day from that point. Hell, I actually believed the ‘states rights’ reason for the civil war until I was at least 14 or so. Crazy what stupid can breed
100% wrong, Yankee has a meaning and has only ever been a north south during and after the civil war, you know when we killed a bunch of racist ducks and burned their cities to the ground.
If you see yourself as anything but a Yankee I’m going to call you a traitor and a closet feddy, it is what it is no matter how many friendly southern afforisms you offer.
Wait. I’m a traitor?
Like, I have an entire culture that I’m grieving. Warts and all. Grew up in this. I talk different, look different, eat different from like the rest of the USA. I’m pretty much a walking talking stereotype of a redneck.
What the fuck is up with you that you think that’s a reasonable thing to say? Would Mister Rogers like the person you’re being?
I’m with you. Words change.
There are still good southerners. But it’s hard sometimes. I still live here but I’m weary for my kids. It’s fine for now.
I wish you peace with your family. Whatever that means.
Southerns sure, those southerns are Yankees. The “others” that don’t like to be called Yankee chose to succeed and got handled. So you’re might be a southern but you’re a Yankee or indeed yes you n either are a traitor or long to be one.
If you say you aren’t a Yankee you’re either a traitor or long to be one. We fought a war over that shit and those southern “not Yankees” lost.
Neat, so you’re American and you do stereotypical shit and have a slightly different culture and dialect. You know what every other country on the planet would say a Yankee is? The stereotype of the person you claim to be, ie an American.
Mr.Rodgers was against racism so I’m pretty sure he’s ok with not supporting the racist legacy of the South.
My god, I figure we’re probably on the same side of the fence. You seem like you’re some kind of angry and I don’t know why.
There’s so much racist freight in the south it ain’t worth talking about. My banjo teacher’s daddy was the grand wizard. Fucking for real, true statement.
I’m not racist. I’ve made deliberate efforts to include black folks (the primary other in my neck of the woods) in my personal and professional life.
I shook hands with a man today and told him goodbye. Iranian, he got out when shit went bad with the Shah snd the CIA and such. He owned the gas station down from my old house and expanded. We talked about getting old and staying working otherwise we’ll die. We talked about his grandkids and how I want grandkids. I’m going to miss him a whole lot. He’s a good man.
I’m a redneck, not a Yankee, and that’s okay. I love my people even if they are sick.