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

Praecipitatum verius quam editum...

I can't follow all the inferences and innuendos.

Not that I should be pointing out this fault in others.
 

LOL. maybe those last three grafs were the result of another Southerner, Mr. Geo. A Dickel, and his effect on my tired self and red neck. I leave them as markers along my journey.
 

Yeah. So I'm curious about "It takes a repentant son of the South to see things certain ways."

Why is that? The people you name learned their lessons from others: some were sons and daughters from the North, or across the pond, and others, sons and daughters of the South who needed no repentance.
 

I suggest you ask Mr. Dickel. Or better yet, just leave me alone on this subject for a while. I'm tired of defending myself and explaining myself to ya. Which is a nice way of sayin' I'm tired of yer poking me and prodding me and challenging me on this every step of the way.

No offense. Just tired. Even when I come clean on a major something or the other, you keep on. Give me a break.

On a more serious note, I'd say that what I mean by this, "It takes a repentant son of the South to see things certain ways," is an expression of my confidence, my version of how you apparently think of yourself, as a son of the South who had nothing from which to repent, which comes across on this end as arrogance.

But really, I'm done.

And now I'm off to Stillwater to see if the Pokes can manhandle the Mizzou kittycats tonight at Boone Pickens Stadium.
 

No, ER, writing a blog with an option for comments does not allow you to bow out from comments by saying you were tired in the first place. If you were tired in the first place and did not want to hear anything back, then it does not make sense to post, or to have an option for comments.

I'm not doing anything the mechanism isn't built for. I think you've moved from statement to snippiness, which is a momentary lapse in your usual acknowledgment of the ways and means of open conversation.
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I wasn't talking about myself, ER. I was talking about all those Northerners who flooded the south for voter registration in the 1960s. I was talking about Bayard Rustin, from West Chester, Pa. I'm talking about W.E.B. DuBois from Great Barrington, Ma. I'm talking about Bob Moses, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., A. J. Muste, etc., etc. Southerners who had nothing to repent in this regard would be MLK, James Farmer, Will Campbell, A Phillip Randolph, Ralph Abernathy, etc., etc.

Why would I be talking about myself? Reading DuBois, Ida B. Wells, James Cone, James Baldwin, Cornel West, working in the Dixwell neighborhood of New Haven, the 6th ward of Lancaster, North Philly... my reading of theology... all was working out my repentance. Having done so, it was supernatural grace that continued to carry me into a new world of personal and professional riches, without a need for repentance anymore, just a need for living a full life.
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So, all in all, when we see a little misplaced arrogance leaking out in this matter, I think it's coming from the Orange side of the ball. Or from Mr. Dickel's laxity.
 

And then there's the curious case of LBJ. Repentance and LBJ don't go together. But he learned his personal lessons very, very early in Cotulla. And then he hid them from the public for a long, long time.
 

Troops? A lil dramatic flare, huh Rudy? Tangipihoa's probably about 75% white, and they know who and what they are electing. Feller's been doing this forever, but they don't mind. He's been called on it, so he'll probably quit before Bobby gets involved.

Troops? Rudy, any idea what a La. JOP does? They're not quite important as animal control and are paid less. A notary has as much authority, cept for the marrying papers. Instead of gettin all indignant bout this feller(who are a dime a dozen BTW; most preachers won't do mixed marriages either) come sit in a La. courtroom and see how many brown fellers and ladies do hard time or the maximum for "small" crimes or how many schools have a token brown teacher or how unlikely you are to get pulled over by a brown officer.

Not sayin yore raised ire is wrong, but a tad misplaced...I can think of a whole lot bigger fish. Course, yore lucky, seein how they ain't none of this stuff goin on in Oklahoma.

Course, troops would be handy when Ms. Louella starts whooping on her hubby, ol' man Perkins...see, she beat up the constable, JOP, and the preacher fore the deputies tased her asleep.
 

If you say what you mean and mean what you say why are you so proud to call yourself "REDNECK"?
Me thinks you are full of shit.
 

Dr. Bill, sorry, mayhap I let my rant get away from me. But here's why, and here's why I would see it, as drastic as it is, as a way to preserve a whiff of sovereignty: If JP's there are elected, and they keep electing him, then they're gonna keep electing him until theyu are convinced to do otherwise, right? I don't want to take away their right to elect whom they please. But they -- and of course, yes, plenty of others there *and* here -- need some stiff persuasion on perhaps changin' who it is they please.

Sorry to rant so close to home, Dr. Bill. And yer right: There are much bigger fish to fry.
 

Howdy, Blue Dog. Come on in the house.

Short answer: Ain't proud. Ain't ashamed, either. "Redneck," despite Mr. Foxworthy and others attempts to make it an adjective, is a noun -- a noun referring to a kind of person with a kind of upbringing in a kind of rural place. I am, fundamentally, that kind of person*, I had that kind of upbringing, and I had it in that kind of place.

* Which means I'm the kind of person who, for example, will say, "Howdy, come on in the house," on first meetin' someone, even one who's done already let his smart mouth run off from his sense of civility and propriety, while at the same time, acknowledgin' "why yes, yes I am as full of shit as a Christmas turkey on occassion," and adding, with a formerly snuff-stained grin: "if you don't like it, you can kiss my ass."

:-)
 

As Lyle Lovett says, "...I told her redneckness has got to be a disease.
You catch it on your fingers and it just crawls right up your sleeves..."

ER, just go on down to Idabel, OK and rent yourself a motel room for a week and watch the Oklahoma of the 1950's pass you by. Life is stale and static in the backwaters, all backwaters, everywhere.

I was in southside Chicago last week. Now that was the back-est of the the back-est backwaters I have ever been in and the racism was completely upside down. Chicago has got to be the most seriously segregated place, albeit voluntary, that I have ever seen.
 

When Lisa and I moved to Jarratt, VA in 1994, I have to admit a little trepidation. I was buoyed by the idea I kept hearing, this whole "New South" thing.

It might exist in Atlanta and Raleigh and maybe even Birmingham and Mobile; Jarratt, however, even though it sits right on I-95, missed that particular bit of updating. I was smack-dab in the middle of Jim Crow. At least among the white folk of Jarratt. The African-American population, however, seemed to get it, and lived their lives as if the white folk who ran the town didn't exist.

Oh, the two communities crossed paths all the time; yet they existed in completely different universes, and even though the ministry Lisa was forced by circumstance to do was with the aging and dying white community of Jarratt, I much preferred the African-Americans.

Which is not to say I disliked the folks at Centenary UMC. I loved them; only in the South do folks not only not lock up the odd and eccentric family members, but plant them on the front porch for the world to see. All this is to say I lived for my five years in Jarratt with my eyes wide open, and occasionally with my mouth running ahead of my common sense (I put that down to being young; I was 28 when we moved there, 33 when we left).

Time and the natural way of things have taken their toll on the Jarratt we left behind, even as it was so acting while we lived there. My hope for that town, and so many like it, is a new generation, largely African-American, will revitalize and re-envision what kind of community Jarratt can be, including being honest about what kind of community it used to be.
 

Re, "only in the South do folks not only not lock up the odd and eccentric family members, but plant them on the front porch for the world to see."

LOL! Might oughta tweak that and put three chords behind it!
 

Our next door neighbors, good friends and faithful church members, were married first cousins.

Need I go on?