Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

By The Erudite Redneck

“Note for the record that I am throwing away a sock,” ol ER intoned sonorously and seriously, evoking mumbles of incredulity from Dr. ER.

Her skepticism was warranted, turns out, although the darn sock did actually make it into a trash can – but not for long.

Got to thinking about that sock.

“That sock’s almost as old as Bird,” I observed. “Mmm hmm,” Dr. ER muttered.

“That’s one of my D.C. socks,” I allowed, which takes some explaining.

Before a 20-something ER went to Washington, D.C., as a college intern back in ’87, he had never been anywhere, ever, or had any experience whatsoever that caused him to think outside the box.

Hell, he didn’t even know he was IN a box – “box” here referrin’ to the rural Oklahoma upbringin’ that was right fine and dandy but definitely had its limitations, worldview-wise.

ER's time in D.C. was a turning point in his life like no other. (Seriously, I still reap benefits. I am a better student, journalist and person because of it. I still have Potomac fever, although the threat of terrorist attack is a great antidote.)

Back to that darn sock. It is one of the few survivors of the first real wardrobes I ever had.

My big Brudder hauled me to J.C. Penney at Central Mall in Fort Smith, Ark., the winter before my spring internship way back when, and loaded me up with dress shirts and britches, neckties, some actual suits, new shoes and belts and all.

Truth is, when I stumbled of the plane at (then non-Reagan) National Airport, I really had come into into town on a turnip truck, but you couldn’t tell by looking, thanks to my Brudder. I have never been more appropriately dressed.

Some of those 1980s-era ties, most of them horribly dated now (lots of paisley) still hang in my closet. The shoes are long gone. The suits shrunk so bad (wink) over the years they are long gone, too.

But nigh 20 years later, several pairs of those darn socks are still part of the regular sockly daily rotation. It’s a men’s underwear thing.

That darn sock is a historic sock!

There was one other odd reason for me to dig it back out of the trash can:

Kevin Ogle sold it to me. Yep, the current 6 and 10 p.m. news anchor on KFOR-TV Channel 4 in Oklahoma City, was then a part-timer, I guess, at a TV station in Fort Smith, and was workin’ part-time in the men’s department at J.C. Penney at Central Mall.

It is a small, small world, this here world of journalism (a term I use guardedly when referring to TV “news,” although Ogle has always seemed to be a good guy).

And it’s a small, small thing, mayhap, to put such stock in a sock.

But there it is to the immediate left of my home computer screen, draped unceremoniously over the edge of a huge tax assessor-type map of my home county, Sequoyah, in eastern Oklahoma, which I bought and had expensively framed a few years ago in a fit of regional pride, not far from it an old Prince Albert tin I picked up at a junk store because it made me think of Daddy, not far from a near-lifesize ceramic rooster draped with a Confederate battle flag, which is sittin’ next to a coffee mug in the shape of a Hereford bull head, which must’ve been put out by the Hereford people because it follows true Hereford conformation, circa 1950s-1960s, which ain’t far from a lug nut Dr. ER picked up on a visit to DEI (Dale Earnhardt Inc. in North Carolina), which ... well, you get the idea.

Me addin’ a ragged ol’ sock to my stock of memorabilia shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody who knows me. I’m a sucker for anything loaded with sappy memories, and, despite the holes in the toes and the tear above the heel, that old gray sock is chock full of them.

END