If your relationship to your God and your family is the most important part of your life, you might be a redneck. Rural southerners are very supportive of family, friends and church. They spend a lot of time figuring out just who they are related too and which church they attend. When someone in the community dies, the neighbors immediately fill their dinner table with fried chicken, potato salad, jugs of ice tea and offers of help. True rednecks are quick to support and assist their family, friends and neighbors.

If you believe that you can take care of yourself without interference from big government or left wing do-gooders, you might be a redneck. A redneck will always find a way to do the things he needs to do with the resources at hand. He considers living on government handouts to be an insult to his ability. Allowing any of his near relatives to have to turn to welfare to survive is a major embarrassment. Rednecks care for their own. They don’t need big brother government telling them how to run their lives.

If you know that taking your son fishing is far more important that working those extra hours so you can buy him the latest gadget, then you just might be a redneck. A parent’s most important duty is to his or her children. Time spent with a child, especially time used to pass on the best of his culture, is far more valuable than any level of income produced by neglecting his child.

If you find that working in the quiet of your fields or pastures is far more rewarding than the noise and pressure of some factory, you are probably a redneck. There is nothing more rewarding that to watch the crops under your care grow and thrive. Every day is a reward in itself as your crop grows rich dark green foliage, offers its flowers, puts on fruit that grows and ripens for the fall harvest. You are there every step of the way, from preparing the soil, to planting, caring for and harvesting the fruit of your labor. Even the term “redneck” comes from the strip of tan skin between the straw hat and collar of a farmer’s work clothes.

If you believe that you should only cultivate as much land as you need to provide for your family and livestock, and leave the rest for the birds, bees, rabbits, and foxes, you can claim to be a redneck. When God gave man dominion over the earth and all the creatures in it, He did not intend for us to drive the rest of his creation out. Sharing the land with our fellow creatures is a central part of the rural life style.

If you find that sitting on a hill top with your back against a tree while watching the sun rise is a spirit filled moment, then you just may be a redneck. A true redneck is always comfortable with himself. He does not need to be constantly surrounded by the noise of radio, TV or the voices of the know-it-alls. Sitting alone, surrounded by the sound of birds singing the sun awake, is a sure way to hear the voice of God.

Rednecks don’t need the elite left to run our lives for them. We don’t need to work hard just to buy all the gadgets the big companies try to sell us. We live at peace with ourselves, with nature and with nature’s God. All we ask of the world is to be left alone.

Why can’t the rest of you follow our example?

Copyright © June 8, 2005 by Frank Gillispie
frankgillispie@charter.net. 706-549-7966