Friday, November 12, 2004
This 'splains a lot
By The Erudite Redneck
This here is my neck of the woods. My original stompin grounds. Home.
It's from Down in the Holler: A Gallery of Ozark Folk Speech (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953): 3.
"A great deal has been written about the people who live in the Ozark Mountains of southern Missouri, northern Arkansas, and eastern Oklahoma. These backwoodsmen were, until recently, the most deliberately unprogressive white people in the United States. The descendants of pioneers from the Southern Appalachians, their way of life changed very little during the whole span of the nineteenth century. They lived in a lost world, where primitive customs and usages persisted right down into the age of industrial civilization."
I have never read a more succinct description of my people and culture.
Note that, written in 1953, it doesn't mention "white people" like anything written in the past 40 years would. The author means it plainly -- not politically or racially. Just factually.
Note also that the author uses "unprogressive" the same way: neither politically, nor judgmentally, but factually. He means "conservative" -- and even that not politically, but factually. He means, simply, "slow to change."
If that ain't me and mine, I don't know what is. The author meant no offense. None taken!
END
This here is my neck of the woods. My original stompin grounds. Home.
It's from Down in the Holler: A Gallery of Ozark Folk Speech (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953): 3.
"A great deal has been written about the people who live in the Ozark Mountains of southern Missouri, northern Arkansas, and eastern Oklahoma. These backwoodsmen were, until recently, the most deliberately unprogressive white people in the United States. The descendants of pioneers from the Southern Appalachians, their way of life changed very little during the whole span of the nineteenth century. They lived in a lost world, where primitive customs and usages persisted right down into the age of industrial civilization."
I have never read a more succinct description of my people and culture.
Note that, written in 1953, it doesn't mention "white people" like anything written in the past 40 years would. The author means it plainly -- not politically or racially. Just factually.
Note also that the author uses "unprogressive" the same way: neither politically, nor judgmentally, but factually. He means "conservative" -- and even that not politically, but factually. He means, simply, "slow to change."
If that ain't me and mine, I don't know what is. The author meant no offense. None taken!
END
Comments:
<< Home
The book was written in 1953? I wonder what he would think of the place now. We have running water and everything! :)
Yes, but there are still some folks in the hills and hollers who have been dragged kickin' and screamin' into modernity. And I'm among 'em in some ways. I do most of the things I do to get by in this life because I have to, not because I want to, and that goes for the tolls of gettin' buy, too. Like this computer. If I could figure a way to jot my thoughts on a legal pad at my kitchen table, and still have all y'all see 'em, and then be able to see your comments some way, I'd do it. ... What I need is a Hedwig (sp?). I want to be able to send and receive owls like Harry Potter! :-)
You want one of those magic slates where your writing disappears when you lift up the plastic sheet. That way you can write longhand and not hurt yourself typing. Maybe an Etch-A-Sketch to post photos?
Maybe I want a rock box with a viewfinder and a little bird wearin' a sunshade with a chisel and a small slab on a tiny easel, chiseling out what I see. :-)
Post a Comment
<< Home
