Cranky and grumbling since last we visited. That last column left a bit of bile in my own mouth when I read it again, a little sour stomach that sometimes leaps bitter into the back of my throat.
See, I’m a country boy, pure and simple, even though I don’t play a fiddle, wear overalls or straw hats. I don’t know the difference of a hootenanny and a hoedown. I never pitched hay or milked a cow.
But dad-blame it, there ain’t enough country left no more. We’ve done gone and refined ourselves somehow, all in the interest of “progress.”
Listen. I don’t want a return to washboards and mule-drawn ploughs for the love of Pete (sorry, Pete!) But look at us. Just look at us!
We stick out our chests and lift our chins and proudly proclaim we’re country-folk. Well, let me break it to you gently, boys and girls, it ain’t so. Maybe we’ve convinced ourselves we’re country, or maybe that mysterious, shadowy entity known as “they” have convinced us we’re country…rural, as “they” say now…but I beg to differ. I don’t even beg. I insist.
We stack up our houses on…what? An acre, acre-and-a-half of land, . . . → Read More: Country? Hardly.