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

The other day, some commenter suggested that "erudite redneck" was an oxymoron. Well, hell no.

Is erudite black? Is erudite Latino? Is erudite Baptist? Is erudite Yankee?

The commenter either didn't know what "erudite" means or what "redneck" means, or both.

Erudite means scholarly, or learned. Redneck is a subculture, or maybe a sub-subculture.

"Redneck" means a stubborn, usually but not always Southern, person who came up workin' for a livin' and is proud of it, who doedn't take much shit from many people, who might be a little on the conservative side sometimes, and a little on the liberal side sometimes, but above all else is independent and doedn't cotton to anyone tellin' him or her where to head in at, be it Big Government, Big Bidness, Big Religion or Big City Idiots who don't know shit about the country, whether its red or blue, who thinks political correctness and other attempts to tamp down plain talk is our main enemy from within because of all the rights we enjoy in this (more or less) free country, there is no right to not have your dang feelings hurt by what others say or write so shut the hell up about them already, get over it and yerself, for God's sake.

And it means some other stuff. But I'm so put off by the notion that one cannot be "erudite" and "redneck" it makes me want a dip, so I could spit right -- 'cause I ain't been able to spit fer shit since I quit dippin' back in 2-ought-ought-2. Holy crap, where's the Goody's Headache Powder?

I got all that eruditeness from Muskogee (OK, now that sounds like an oxymoron, but I can say that, bein' from them parts), by headin' directly on Saturday, after the big history hootenanny, to Fort Smith, Ark., where I acquired a new hat -- first new hat in a few years, The Cattleman, by Resistol.

Then went to Paw Paw, the remains of an Oklahoma town that washed plumb away in the '40s when the Arkansas River flooded, right on the border spittin' distance from Fort Smith, with some friends to smoke cigars and drink Arkansas beer. (I am amazed that Mapquest has it; there is nothing left but the cemetery and the old townsite is now on privately held farm land).

Then went to Jimmy's Somewhere Else Club betwixt Panama and Bokoshe, Okla., a little ways south of where I grew up to see Awesome Possum, an outlaw band fronted by the nephew of my oldest redneck friend in the world, wherein more beer was consumed.

Then headed back to Mama ER's house, where cold icebox chicken, procured earlier in the day just for the occasion, was down-chowed around the kitchen table just a little after midnight.

A fine, fine way to maintain balance in life: Erudite in the mornin' and redneck in the evening. Yea and verily, it was good.

--ER