Tuesday, September 14, 2004
9/14/01
By The Erudite Redneck
Three years ago, I was STILL tryin’ to get back to the house from Washington, D.C., three days after the terrorist attacks – but I was already “home,” a circumstance reflected by the sudden disappearance of a bunch of G’s, and the return of those friendly apostrophes in their place, at the end of “ing” words on this post.
“Home” for me stretches from the Mississippi River to the east, to 103 degrees W longitude (western edge of the Oklahoma Panhandle), to the Kansas border to the north, to the Rio Grande to the south.
It includes Arkansas, where I was born, Oklahoma, where I grew up and now live, Texas, where I spent 10 years, and Louisiana, where I have Cajun kin. By extension, “home” is the South as a whole, and the West as a whole.
All that was left the Friday after Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, was to get to “the house.” That’s what Southern-born and –bred men think in times of trouble – say, there’s a tornado comin’ or someone in the family has died, or they unexpectedly cancel a NASCAR race: “I better head to the house!”
It’d be a great name for a bar, since wives, even G.R.I.T.S. – Girls Raised in the South – do not always understand or appreciate the difference. Example: Wife, on phone: “Honey, are you comin’ home soon?” Husband, at work: “I am fixin’ to head to The House.”
So I slept in three years ago today, which means until about 8 a.m. as opposed to 6 or so. Got up, Mr. Dickel politely tappin’ me on the shoulder, sayin’ “Aren’t you glad you left two or three fingers of me in that bottle?” “Yessir, I am, Mr. Dickel, thanks for askin’. But did you have to go and kick me in the gut in my sleep?”
Victuals were high on my agenda. Got up, dressed, cleaned up, paid up, loaded up the rental car and headed west – all of about 10 miles to Earle, Ark., and a truck stop.
Homewise, it don’t get much better than the truck stop at the Earle exit off Interstate 40, in the Delta of eastern Arkansas, not far from a place called, as the ghost of Robert E. Lee is my witness, “Dixie.” Plate of sausage, eggs, cathead biscuits and gravy and hot, black coffee fixed me right up.
Back on the highway, keepin’ on truckin’ through Little Rock, I got to the homiest part of the state, northwest Arkansas and the Ozarks, by about 11 a.m. I was listenin’ to the car radio again for news, and I knew the to-do at the National Cathedral back in D.C. was fixin’ to happen – and that people all over the country were going to be gatherin’ under American flags for prayer in their public gatherin’ places at the same time.
I was close enough at the right time, so I got off at the Clarksville, Ark., exit, and pulled up to the Johnson County Courthouse – and it could be that this was the reason I headed south from Cincinnati, not west, in the first place.
My mama’s family came through Johnson County. Her daddy’s daddy is buried there. He was a private in Company C of the 1st Arkansas Volunteer Infantry during the War Between the States.
He lived to be 90, until 1930, with a crippled hip, which his pension records say he got by being whacked with the breech of a rifle, which means close-in, hand-to-hand fightin’ with some damnyank, and after havin’ had diarrhea ever since gettin’ dysentery during the war.
That’s 65 years with the runs. Plus he had “nerviousness,” his pension record says.
He was one tough old Rebel – a poor hillbilly who “fit” for his homeland because the way he saw it, his homeland was under attack. Remember: Johnson County is in the Ozarks, not the Delta. There were no plantations here, and few slaves. He didn’t fight for slavery. He fought for himself and his home.
And Mama knew him. She was born in 1922. She says she remembers her grandpa livin’ with them when was she was little, gettin’ the heebie-jeebies in the middle of the night, and balin’ off the sleepin’ porch, tearin’ off through the woods hollerin’ and carryin’ on. “Shell-shocked,” they called it then. “Post-traumatic stress disorder,” we call it now.
Anyway, that’s how close I am to the Late Unpleasantness: TWO DEGREES OF SEPARATION. Mama knew him. I know Mama. That’s why I “still smell the powder burnin’ and probably always will.”
That’s why it was especially poignant for me to find myself standin’ on the Johnson County Courthouse steps, maybe with some unknown kin around me, for a small-town version of the Lord-help-us ceremony goin’ on at the National Cathedral at noon on Friday, Sept. 14, 2001:
Our homeland had been attacked, again. Three years later, I hope we still smell the jet fuel burnin’ -- and I pray that we always will.
Back on the highway, feelin’ proud and prayed up, it took about an hour or so to get across the rest of Arkansas, around Fort Smith and across the Arkansas River, to Mama’s house.
Hugs. Something to eat. Told some of the tale. Let Mama talk. Not only was I in D.C., but one of my grown nephews, a private pilot, was in New York City the day of the attacks. Mama was not amused. She would just as soon her babies and grandbabies stayed home, if not literally at the house. But she is a fraidy-cat, by her own admission, and we let her be.
Pulled out of Mama’s driveway, hung a right, headed to “town,” where at “the light,” I hooked a left, darted over the hill to the interstate and got back on I-40 headed west. In no time at all, I was back at my own house, with Dr. Erudite Redhead and then-still Baby Bird as glad to see me as ever.
Three years ago tonight, I put my head down on my own pillow, in my own bed, with my own wife – :-) -- my own kid in her room down the hall, my own dogs in the back yard. It was so quiet I almost couldn’t stand it.
With the airports still shut down, nothin’ but Nature was in the sky, and since we live directly under the flight path for planes comin’ into Will Rogers World Airport from the north, the silence was especially loud.
Dr. Erudite Redhead said the stillness made it even more unnerving earlier in the week, when NATO AWACS planes dispatched to shore up those called to duty from Tinker Air Force Base tooled around at what seemed like treetop level, spookin’ the dogs – just one of a million things I missed by bein’ gone.
The next few days, Dr. Erudite Redhead would catch me up on her end of the Erudite Redneck’s Not-So-Excellent Adventure.
Friday night after Sept. 11, 2001, finally home, finally back at the house, one thing was still out of place – one thing without which no redneck, erudite or otherwise, can totally relax. Danged if I didn’t have to hurry up and wait one more time, until Saturday morning.
One more -- :-) -- anon.
Three years ago, I was STILL tryin’ to get back to the house from Washington, D.C., three days after the terrorist attacks – but I was already “home,” a circumstance reflected by the sudden disappearance of a bunch of G’s, and the return of those friendly apostrophes in their place, at the end of “ing” words on this post.
“Home” for me stretches from the Mississippi River to the east, to 103 degrees W longitude (western edge of the Oklahoma Panhandle), to the Kansas border to the north, to the Rio Grande to the south.
It includes Arkansas, where I was born, Oklahoma, where I grew up and now live, Texas, where I spent 10 years, and Louisiana, where I have Cajun kin. By extension, “home” is the South as a whole, and the West as a whole.
All that was left the Friday after Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, was to get to “the house.” That’s what Southern-born and –bred men think in times of trouble – say, there’s a tornado comin’ or someone in the family has died, or they unexpectedly cancel a NASCAR race: “I better head to the house!”
It’d be a great name for a bar, since wives, even G.R.I.T.S. – Girls Raised in the South – do not always understand or appreciate the difference. Example: Wife, on phone: “Honey, are you comin’ home soon?” Husband, at work: “I am fixin’ to head to The House.”
So I slept in three years ago today, which means until about 8 a.m. as opposed to 6 or so. Got up, Mr. Dickel politely tappin’ me on the shoulder, sayin’ “Aren’t you glad you left two or three fingers of me in that bottle?” “Yessir, I am, Mr. Dickel, thanks for askin’. But did you have to go and kick me in the gut in my sleep?”
Victuals were high on my agenda. Got up, dressed, cleaned up, paid up, loaded up the rental car and headed west – all of about 10 miles to Earle, Ark., and a truck stop.
Homewise, it don’t get much better than the truck stop at the Earle exit off Interstate 40, in the Delta of eastern Arkansas, not far from a place called, as the ghost of Robert E. Lee is my witness, “Dixie.” Plate of sausage, eggs, cathead biscuits and gravy and hot, black coffee fixed me right up.
Back on the highway, keepin’ on truckin’ through Little Rock, I got to the homiest part of the state, northwest Arkansas and the Ozarks, by about 11 a.m. I was listenin’ to the car radio again for news, and I knew the to-do at the National Cathedral back in D.C. was fixin’ to happen – and that people all over the country were going to be gatherin’ under American flags for prayer in their public gatherin’ places at the same time.
I was close enough at the right time, so I got off at the Clarksville, Ark., exit, and pulled up to the Johnson County Courthouse – and it could be that this was the reason I headed south from Cincinnati, not west, in the first place.
My mama’s family came through Johnson County. Her daddy’s daddy is buried there. He was a private in Company C of the 1st Arkansas Volunteer Infantry during the War Between the States.
He lived to be 90, until 1930, with a crippled hip, which his pension records say he got by being whacked with the breech of a rifle, which means close-in, hand-to-hand fightin’ with some damnyank, and after havin’ had diarrhea ever since gettin’ dysentery during the war.
That’s 65 years with the runs. Plus he had “nerviousness,” his pension record says.
He was one tough old Rebel – a poor hillbilly who “fit” for his homeland because the way he saw it, his homeland was under attack. Remember: Johnson County is in the Ozarks, not the Delta. There were no plantations here, and few slaves. He didn’t fight for slavery. He fought for himself and his home.
And Mama knew him. She was born in 1922. She says she remembers her grandpa livin’ with them when was she was little, gettin’ the heebie-jeebies in the middle of the night, and balin’ off the sleepin’ porch, tearin’ off through the woods hollerin’ and carryin’ on. “Shell-shocked,” they called it then. “Post-traumatic stress disorder,” we call it now.
Anyway, that’s how close I am to the Late Unpleasantness: TWO DEGREES OF SEPARATION. Mama knew him. I know Mama. That’s why I “still smell the powder burnin’ and probably always will.”
That’s why it was especially poignant for me to find myself standin’ on the Johnson County Courthouse steps, maybe with some unknown kin around me, for a small-town version of the Lord-help-us ceremony goin’ on at the National Cathedral at noon on Friday, Sept. 14, 2001:
Our homeland had been attacked, again. Three years later, I hope we still smell the jet fuel burnin’ -- and I pray that we always will.
Back on the highway, feelin’ proud and prayed up, it took about an hour or so to get across the rest of Arkansas, around Fort Smith and across the Arkansas River, to Mama’s house.
Hugs. Something to eat. Told some of the tale. Let Mama talk. Not only was I in D.C., but one of my grown nephews, a private pilot, was in New York City the day of the attacks. Mama was not amused. She would just as soon her babies and grandbabies stayed home, if not literally at the house. But she is a fraidy-cat, by her own admission, and we let her be.
Pulled out of Mama’s driveway, hung a right, headed to “town,” where at “the light,” I hooked a left, darted over the hill to the interstate and got back on I-40 headed west. In no time at all, I was back at my own house, with Dr. Erudite Redhead and then-still Baby Bird as glad to see me as ever.
Three years ago tonight, I put my head down on my own pillow, in my own bed, with my own wife – :-) -- my own kid in her room down the hall, my own dogs in the back yard. It was so quiet I almost couldn’t stand it.
With the airports still shut down, nothin’ but Nature was in the sky, and since we live directly under the flight path for planes comin’ into Will Rogers World Airport from the north, the silence was especially loud.
Dr. Erudite Redhead said the stillness made it even more unnerving earlier in the week, when NATO AWACS planes dispatched to shore up those called to duty from Tinker Air Force Base tooled around at what seemed like treetop level, spookin’ the dogs – just one of a million things I missed by bein’ gone.
The next few days, Dr. Erudite Redhead would catch me up on her end of the Erudite Redneck’s Not-So-Excellent Adventure.
Friday night after Sept. 11, 2001, finally home, finally back at the house, one thing was still out of place – one thing without which no redneck, erudite or otherwise, can totally relax. Danged if I didn’t have to hurry up and wait one more time, until Saturday morning.
One more -- :-) -- anon.
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These series of stories have been outstanding, dude. I'm impressed with your ability to capture the emotion of that time. Thanks for sharing.
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