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stevelee
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Post by stevelee » Fri Apr 21, 2017 10:36 am

Airball50 wrote:
stevelee wrote:It's been over 50 years since I read it (summer before DU, per reading list) the first time, and I think I reread parts of it maybe 20 years ago, but I'd still suggest W.J. Cash's The Mind of the South. I was expecting mint juleps on the veranda, but found a description of Southern textile mill culture, mostly. I was working in the mill where my father worked that summer, so it seemed especially relevant. BTW, I am likely a distant cousin of the author on his mother's side, I figured in recent years. But then I'm almost for sure kin to most families that have been in that area for 200 years or more.

They are often overblown, but there is value in understanding redneck culture, and to some degree linthead cultue, in reading some the studies of Scots-Irish characteristics that were in vogue, what, 15 or so years ago.
"there is value in understanding redneck culture"

+1!
OK, you gave the context and then quoted me out of context, but I'll still go with that sentiment, too. I should also recommend the work of Jeff Foxworthy.

Also, I see that I used the term "linthead." I had never seen or heard the word until some time in my adulthood. I don't know if it started out as an insult or as an affectionate term of group identity. Maybe my not having encountered it in Shelby is explained simply enough by the fact that many of the mills, including where my father worked, dealt with synthetics rather than cotton. I got my literal linthead credentials when I worked in Kings Mountain the summer of 1965. I spent part of the fall of my sophomore year coughing up bits of cotton.
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sundance
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Post by sundance » Fri Apr 21, 2017 10:39 am

This is good and fun stuff. You guys/gals should write some memoirs. Seriously.

It wasn't Southern, but Mom came from a farm outside a town of 400 people. Dirt poor. Dad came from a town of 2000. Together they spawned a genius, their first born - which wasn't me.

Family histories and culture have always intrigued me. Alas, I have no redneck pedigree.

But I once, for the first time, experienced being drunk, by design, late spring semester freshman year at DavimunKollage. We ran out of beer but I wasn't to be denied. A little bottle sitting on the windowsill of the men's room at the Harris Fish Camp had some alcohol content, it said. Target identified. After drinking Breck Shampoo, we stopped three times on the roadside so I could puke and I fell asleep with my head in the urinal on third floor Cannon. My first 'taste' of wanton inebriation.

Does that qualify for anything?

Speaking of the South, an editor friend of mine from Random House directed me to Rick Bragg for some ideas and guidance as I was trying to write some of my memoirs.

If you haven't read Rick Bragg's "All Over But The Shoutin' " as a testament to brilliance arisen from abject destitution, by all means give it a shot.

Mary Karr's "The Art of Memoir" is off the charts amazing.

slowcat95
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Post by slowcat95 » Fri Apr 21, 2017 11:19 am

Airball50 wrote:
Dr. Bliss wrote:
I earned my redneck stripes. How 'bout you, Airball?

Lower middle class upbringing, alcoholic father who was orphaned as a child during the Depression, loaded trucks on night shift for United Parcel, first in family to go to college. Do I pass your redneck admission test?

Davidson alums trying to out-redneck each other. Can I play? Here's my go:
Great-granddaughter of sharecroppers (on both sides of the family), grew up shoveling manure, president of the 4-H club, Under-10 barrel-racing champion, learned to drive in a 2-toned chevy pickup, first potential boyfriend arrived for first date on a John Deere. The local fire dept. built a satellite station across the street from my high school since that's where the vast majority of the volunteer firefighters were all day. And I'd bet the farm there's not a non-cloven-hooved ungulate alive that could unseat me.

FWIW, a true redneck would understand the differences between redneck and white trash.
Last edited by slowcat95 on Fri Apr 21, 2017 11:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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wildforthecats
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Post by wildforthecats » Fri Apr 21, 2017 11:21 am

A former Davidson basketball player('75), #50, shot an airball at halftime of the 12/19/01 game in Charlotte vs GT.

Airball50
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Post by Airball50 » Fri Apr 21, 2017 11:31 am

[/quote]




FWIW, a true redneck would understand the differences between redneck and white trash.[/quote]


They are kissin' cousins, no doubt.

Dr. Bliss
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Post by Dr. Bliss » Fri Apr 21, 2017 11:42 am

slowcat95 wrote:
Airball50 wrote:
Dr. Bliss wrote:
I earned my redneck stripes. How 'bout you, Airball?

Lower middle class upbringing, alcoholic father who was orphaned as a child during the Depression, loaded trucks on night shift for United Parcel, first in family to go to college. Do I pass your redneck admission test?

Davidson alums trying to out-redneck each other. Can I play? Here's my go:
Great-granddaughter of sharecroppers (on both sides of the family), grew up shoveling manure, president of the 4-H club, Under-10 barrel-racing champion, learned to drive in a 2-toned chevy pickup, first potential boyfriend arrived for first date on a John Deere. The local fire dept. built a satellite station across the street from my high school since that's where the vast majority of the volunteer firefighters were all day. And I'd bet the farm there's not a non-cloven-hooved ungulate alive that could unseat me.

FWIW, a true redneck would understand the differences between redneck and white trash.
That gets you the upgraded lifetime membership in my book.

Sundance, you made me laugh hard.

I do enjoy the off-season around here.
"There ain't no sanity clause!" Chico Marx

slowcat95
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Post by slowcat95 » Fri Apr 21, 2017 12:02 pm

I wish I could say my Dad chased him off with a shotgun, but it really didn't take much more than a stern look to scare him away.
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citycat
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Post by citycat » Fri Apr 21, 2017 4:46 pm

A Davidson classmate's daughter was NC High School Rodeo Queen about a decade ago. I had never heard of High School Rodeo, but got a crash course watching her compete.

My mom tells great stories about her family's equines. They were mules.

The number of mules in the US has dropped dramatically in the last 100 years, but no one has put them on the endangered species list.

nalotze
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Post by nalotze » Fri Apr 21, 2017 11:25 pm

slowcat95 wrote:I wish I could say my Dad chased him off with a shotgun, but it really didn't take much more than a stern look to scare him away.
My wife's cousin's first date showed up to her house (not on a lawnmower) and was met by the young lady's father sitting in a rocking chair with a straw in his mouth an a shotgun in his hands. Date engaged him in some very polite smalltalk till she was ready. Before they left, her father gave her a quarter.

"Here's a quarter," he told her. "If John does anything that makes you uncomfortable, you call me and I'll come pick you up."

Date is sweating. Her father turns to him.

"John, here's a quarter," he says. "If my daughter does anything that makes you uncomfortable, you call me and I'll come pick you up."

Date is now her husband.

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stevelee
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Post by stevelee » Fri Apr 21, 2017 11:50 pm

Great story.
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seamac77
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Post by seamac77 » Sat Apr 22, 2017 6:54 am

Great stuff here.. I might have to tell the 'quarter" story at Rotary.

TOK
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Post by TOK » Sat Apr 22, 2017 9:14 am

nalotze wrote:
slowcat95 wrote:I wish I could say my Dad chased him off with a shotgun, but it really didn't take much more than a stern look to scare him away.
My wife's cousin's first date showed up to her house (not on a lawnmower) and was met by the young lady's father sitting in a rocking chair with a straw in his mouth an a shotgun in his hands. Date engaged him in some very polite smalltalk till she was ready. Before they left, her father gave her a quarter.

"Here's a quarter," he told her. "If John does anything that makes you uncomfortable, you call me and I'll come pick you up."

Date is sweating. Her father turns to him.

"John, here's a quarter," he says. "If my daughter does anything that makes you uncomfortable, you call me and I'll come pick you up."

Date is now her husband.
Two interpretations of this story:

1. A quarter? I thought phone calls were a nickel?

2. What's the quarter for? don't they have cell phones?

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stevelee
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Post by stevelee » Sat Apr 22, 2017 9:15 am

Dates the date.
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nalotze
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Post by nalotze » Sat Apr 22, 2017 12:58 pm

TOK wrote:
nalotze wrote:
slowcat95 wrote:I wish I could say my Dad chased him off with a shotgun, but it really didn't take much more than a stern look to scare him away.
My wife's cousin's first date showed up to her house (not on a lawnmower) and was met by the young lady's father sitting in a rocking chair with a straw in his mouth an a shotgun in his hands. Date engaged him in some very polite smalltalk till she was ready. Before they left, her father gave her a quarter.

"Here's a quarter," he told her. "If John does anything that makes you uncomfortable, you call me and I'll come pick you up."

Date is sweating. Her father turns to him.

"John, here's a quarter," he says. "If my daughter does anything that makes you uncomfortable, you call me and I'll come pick you up."

Date is now her husband.
Two interpretations of this story:

1. A quarter? I thought phone calls were a nickel?

2. What's the quarter for? don't they have cell phones?
Mid-90s.

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bobmckellar
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Post by bobmckellar » Sat Apr 22, 2017 1:17 pm

citycat wrote:A Davidson classmate's daughter was NC High School Rodeo Queen about a decade ago. I had never heard of High School Rodeo, but got a crash course watching her compete.

My mom tells great stories about her family's equines. They were mules.

The number of mules in the US has dropped dramatically in the last 100 years, but no one has put them on the endangered species list.
Well, if every mule in the world died tomorrow, we could still make more.
GMO the old fashioned way...
The best thing Davidson ever did was to admit women to classy up the place.

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