Anyone that really knows me understands that I have an irreverent streak that borders on antagonistic. I have a hard time seeing hypocrisy and hardheaded behavior and not pointing it out as such. It has gotten me in trouble a few times, especially at church and family functions when the subject of politics or religion, or the combination of the two, find their way into a conversation. It has never ceased to amaze me how willing some people are to speak their mind when they clearly haven’t bothered to do any research into a subject. Apparently, in the mind of some folks, the opinions purported on the singular political channel they watch, or the comments they glean from around the Boo Rey table at deer camp mumbled through a late night drunken stupor is enough to give them the equivalent of a PHD in just about whatever subject they deem. Why is it that the most self-righteous and front and center discussion seems to come from the person who has spent the least amount of time actually researching the subject they choose to discuss? And, while I’m on the persona of the good-ole-boy-uneducated-lecturing-protagonist I should also ask another leading question; “Why are these almost always the biggest wusses, yet the biggest chest thumpers among us about how tough they are?”
I can’t tell you how many times over the past year I have mentioned a camping trip, or a trip to kayak some local swamp or river, with the response from otherwise self celebratory “tough guys” being a warning, bordering on outright chastisement, against the foolishness that I would dare do something so dangerous. Doesn’t it make sense that the big burly wannabes among us should be less frightened of their surroundings and a little more adventure seeking?
I could go on about the personality of the type, like why they belly-ache about having to do so much hard work, yet are almost always seeking ways to do the least of it. Think about it the next time you hear some blow-hard griping about putting in hard hours from daylight to dusk. Then take a closer look. Chances are he has a layer of fat like a seal, a gut like a manatee, and probably would be just as quick to complain about a hang-nail. These beer-bellied burdensome among us inevitably make the point in conversation about how tough it was when they were younger—you know, the walk to school with a bobcat on their back—and how their Dad was so tough on them, because in his day he had it even tougher.
I can happily say that despite the fact that my Dad had an explosive temper when I was younger, and would occasionally come unhinged at some of my maddeningly extroverted aggravation exercises (I have always been an envelope pusher), he tells of his own childhood as one of happiness. Not one of privilege mind you, but one of happiness; running barefoot down a gravel road without a care in the world, being trapped in a culvert for four hours after venturing in a space a little too tight (Yeah, he counts that among his fond memories. Go figure!). You know, mud, sweat, frogs, fishing—that kind of thing. Al Plunkett has never been the kind—at least in the presence of his son—to gripe and complain about how tough it was and how the world is going to hell in a hand basket because there aren’t more people like him in the world. I look at my Dad and I see a man happy with his life, and that makes me happy. Unlike so many of his fellow rural contemporaries, he hasn’t become jaded at the piss-poor condition of the world around him, or the complete incompetence of “others” who still participate in something other than work and church.
While President Obama clearly stepped in a large heap of steaming controversy when he mentioned the people that “cling to guns and religion”, we all would do well to come clean and admit that part of the reason for some of the uproar was because he wasn’t really too far off base regarding some of our rural brethren. That’s coming from a staunch Second Amendment guy and a believer. So, save your sermon for somebody else.
Other than being taught to keep my bible and firearms handy, I was brought up to show respect for others, especially the elderly. This is part of the Southerner DNA, and something we from the gene pool can be proud of. Sure, for many of us the MSU hoop cheese slice has slid off the saltine, but we also produce a hell of a lot of what is right with the world in the way of musicians, writers, athletes and politicians. Tell me there are four things more important than those and I’ll tell you that your priorities are in need of some adjustment.
But, getting back to that respect thing, I sometimes question how much we should show for the elderly just for the reason that they are . . . well, old. The irreverent antagonist in me wonders why we give deference to idiocy and the self absorbed “Crankshafts” of the world, especially those that are so quick to revert to mythical bogeyman theory when it comes to anything that is unknown. Is it ever permissible by genteel southern standards to tell a person—even one pushing seventy—to lighten up, back off and pick up a damn book?
I know I run the risk of being labeled disrespectful. But, if my God fearing Granny has taught me anything it’s that you can say anything about anybody as long as you ask God to love that person’s soul. I never have really fully understood that. I think it’s kind of like a chant, a spell or an incantation that is supposed to cancel out any negativity. It seems that Baptists and Voodoo Priests have more in common than either is willing to admit.
I was recently helping out a friend running for County Judge in a run-off election by putting out signs at local precincts. While I was placing a sign on the public right-of-way just outside of the legal distance of 150 feet from the front door of the rural polling place, an elderly man I know who lives across the road drove up on his tractor.
“I don’t want that in front of my house,” he snarled.
“This is the public right-of-way,” I replied.
“I don’t care. If you leave it there, I’m gonna pull it up. The last time there was an election that guy left his signs and didn’t come back and get em. So, I got rid of em.”
“Well, that’s because it was to be a runoff election and he can leave them up legally. I wasn’t in charge of those signs. But I’m responsible for these, and I can promise you, I’ll be back to get them tomorrow.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want it there,” he reasserted. “Where does the buck stop?”
“I told you it stops with me,” I responded to his attempts to inject the 1950’s Truman Era phraseology.
I don’t know whether that was as close as he could get to an updated moniker that he felt fit the circumstances, or if he was attempting to dazzle me with his quick wit. Either way, the question had been answered before he asked it—keep up with me gramps, and we’ll get this over with quickly. But, it was the verbal straw he grabbed for next that had me searching for ways to remain positive and not delve into my penchant for calling out know-nothing hypocrites.
“I know the law!” he yelled with his right eye staring me down and his left one cocked outward and gazing off into the distance somewhere over my right shoulder.
This is when the son that Sandra and Al Plunkett always had hoped for stepped in, and the smartass they worked for close to twenty years to get rid of was over ruled. The Lil’ Angel that took over the situation came from an unexpected place in the back of my head, and immediately booted the Lil’ Devil that I was accustomed to allowing full rein in such instances.
The discussion was at the point that I could have giddily pointed out that the old fellow had just produced a circular argument that ended in an absolutely false conclusion. He obviously didn’t know the law. But, instead I told him it was too beautiful a morning for all that.
“I don’t want to argue with you, Mr. Gene,” I was amazed to hear myself say with a smile. “I’ll just pick up the sign, and put it over there by the intersection. Is that okay?”
“I don’t care,” he grumbled. “That ain’t my property down there.”
Of course, the point I had attempted earlier to make that fell on deaf ears and couldn’t sink into that petrified old head of his was that where I had originally placed the sign wasn’t his property either. But, I let it go, inquired as to how his wife was doing, and walked to the intersection to place the sign.
Damnit! I must be getting soft!
I returned to my car and was met by a young lady wearing scrubs that had been inside to vote before going to work. Unbeknownst to me, she along with a few other folks had listened to the entire exchange.
“He can’t do that,” she said. She then suggested that she was prepared to join in the fight and that I should put the sign there anyway.
“Not worth it,” I replied. “If I leave it, he’ll pull it up, and my guy doesn’t have many signs left.”
Old Mr. Gene got his way, but at what cost? How many people standing at the door of the polling place—which, by the way, also happened to be a church, but I’m not chasing that rabbit—were listening and are thinking less of the old coot now?
It was as I was driving away from the scene that I remembered when I first came into contact with Mr. Gene a couple of years earlier. He was being the dutiful husband by helping his wife organize a local plant swap. As he opened the ceremony with announcements about how the event had been publicized, and alluding to how the publicity had helped get a very good crowd, he referred to the Clarion Ledger, the state newspaper, as the “Clarion Liar.”
Now, I’m no huge fan of the Clarion Ledger, and much of the criticism the paper receives is warranted. But, I also find the overused “Clarion Liar” call to be a common refrain among those who lack a full grasp of facts. It is a quick “go-to” that can be relied upon when a particular demographic doesn’t like or understand the full complexities of what they are reading. What was telling in this particular case was the fact that Old Mr. Gene didn’t mind referring to the newspaper in a negative light despite that he and his group of geriatric plant pros were the beneficiaries of the coverage. The event boasted a standing room only crowd thanks, in part, to that coverage from the very newspaper he was now bashing in front of quite a few folks, some of which I feel safe in saying Old Gene didn’t even know. Yet there he was spouting off all holier than thou and suggesting, by tone and demeanor, that he was somehow smarter than the entire staff of the newspaper and everybody else standing before him in the room.
As I snapped back to the present to hug the shoulder of the road and narrowly miss a log truck, my mind had detected a pattern.
Back at the polling place the day after our terse discussion at the fence line, I found the campaign sign down the road from Mr. Gene’s place. It had been pulled up and thrown on the ground across the road. Mr. Gene was outside at the fence continuing his play in the dirt breaking ground to plant daffodils. I have no way of knowing whether he was the one who yanked up the sign or exactly when it was done. But, it was lying there wet from the morning dew suggesting it had been there since at least the previous afternoon. I loaded the sign in the back of my vehicle, pulled over close to Mr. Gene and rolled down my window.
“I just wanted to tell you hello, and let you know I’m a man of my word. I have the signs I brought out yesterday,” I yelled out through the car window with all the ebullience I could muster, “Happy Thanksgiving!”
“Yeah, okay. Happy Thanksgiving,” he muttered back at me under his breath without even so much as looking up from his work. Was he just being rude, or was he trying not to eyeball me and give away the fact that he had pulled up the sign? I imagined how opposite Old Mr. Gene’s actions were from that of Clint Eastwood’s character in Gran Torino as he pointed a pistol the size of a cannon in a young kids face and growled from behind clinched teeth, “Get off my lawn!” It might be completely wrong, but at least that would have been something I could sort of respect.
I drove away, waving at Mr. Gene’s wife working a few dozen yards away. She smiled a big happy smile and waved back.
Poor lady—the rest of us only have to deal with her husband when circumstances force it. She has to live with him every day. Imagine having to deal with someone who is pissed off at the world with such passive ferocity on a daily basis—not quite ballsy enough to stick with the argument, nor humble and honest enough to admit a lack of surety. The added sullenness is just giblets in the morose gravy the old fart stews in.
What’s even worse is that he has to live with himself. God love his soul.
