Redneck decoration 101

http://myredneckworld.com/

Ran across that the other day while I was looking at the Google Analytics for this page. I want that wooden motorcycle! That is badass. The real "riding" lawnmower is pretty cool, too. If our yard weren't so damned hilly and obstructed, I'd have to see about getting me one of those. But the last thing I'd need is to lay it over, 'cause we all know it'd be too heavy to pick up alone, and the mower blade would be spinning.

In fact, WAY too many of those photos look really familiar.

I like the gingerbread trailer, too. The front lawn on that one is spot-on perfect. And it's not just trailer park folks that do that, either. I've never had to live in a trailer park myself, but I've crashed with a lot of relatives who do, and it's true, everything you hear. We all have stuff in our front yards like a gigantic truck, or a car that's getting washed, or a car up on blocks. One feller (whom I believe is my 2nd cousin's husband, or maybe he's my second cousin, I'm not sure) who comes to my uncle's Thanksgiving party every year really likes old tractors. So we sold him one. It was an old Ford that had been used as a mountain logging tractor. See, they'd put the wheels on backwards so they got the most grip going backwards, then they'd drive up the hill in reverse, since that was the lowest gear. My grandpa bought it in the late 40s or early 50s for use in his construction business. One time he nearly ran over my dad with it. He parked it on the hillside that day, in 1956, where it sat and rusted for fifty years.

Then my dad told cousin Jim the tractor story, and Jim said he'd pay cash for the tractor if it was for sale. Why what a coincidence, it just happens to have gone on the market.

So the nest weekend, it's still hot as hell, even though it's November, and now the whole family is up halfway up the hill looking at this tractor. Jim brought his wife, his truck, and a trailer. You guessed what that means: papa's goin' hunting and bringin' back a big'un. And what a catch this tractor was. Thing is, it was about 40 feet from the road, grandpa parked it in gear, and now we can't get it out of gear. Oh, this thing was going nowhere.

It took a couple of hours, four people, a truck, a tow chain, and a prayer, but we got the tractor off the mountinside and onto the road without tipping it over. We just had to drag the stubborn hunk of rust. Then, with more effort, we got it onto the trailer and got it chained down. Tractor in his possession, cousin Jim payed up in cold, hard cash.

The next Thanksgiving, Jim had wallet-sized photos of his new favorite tractor to pass around. He had gotten it back out to his kustoms shop way out in flat ranch country, wrestled it off the trailer, and left it where it landed.

Right in front of his porch, next to the mailbox. It had a couple of field-find cars and what might have been some sort of railroad equipment to keep it company. Over turkey, he informed us that it was quite a conversation piece.

The final test will be next Tuesday. It will be multiple-choice. A score of 70% or better means you pass Redneck Decoration 101 and will be able to move on to Redneck Decoration 102: Proper uses of cinderblocks.

Apparently I'm a freak.

I recently had to fly to Sacramento for some urgent family business. That meant four hours on a plane each way. I hate airports. Last year I flew back from D.C. through Chicago-O'Hare. I'm never going there again. O'Hare, I mean. Even if that means a five-stop redirect. That airport has the largest number of delays, and those delays are on average the longest in the country. It's up north and near enough to the lakes to get very consistent foul weather. And y'know what the best part is? The seats they have at the gates are not designed for long-term seating. They're not like the seats at Dallas, Denver, Sacramento, San Deigo, Washington-Reagan, Phoenix, Ontario, LAX, and all the other airports not managed by Catbert. The seats at O'Hare are designed to get you up and out of that seat as quickly as possible and, since your plane still isn't here, into the shops to spend money you can't afford to part with.

That said, I love flying. I'd rather not have had to fly at all these past couple of days, but you take what life gives you and make the best of it. And that means the opportunity to enjoy being in a large metal object on top of thousands of gallons of fuel, going 600 miles an hour eight miles above the earth. That scares most people shitless. It makes me happy. I don't know why. Ever since I saw an airliner coming in for a landing, I've liked that concept. Then when I got to fly in one I discovered that there really is no feeling quite like the one you get just after the plane has left the runway, where it settles and then --whoosh!-- powers into the sky. That is really an unmatched feeling of raw power.

Flying is such a fragile state. You're either flying or you're not. There's no grey area. If any of the precious set of circumstances that sustain flight go awry, the flight ceases and the forcible reaquaintance with the ground begins. There's not a damn thing you as a human can do about it. Much like life itself. But you're high enough in the air that you get to enjoy the ride in a somewhat macabre way. Every time you leave the earth in an airplane (or on a motorcycle, for that matter), you are gambling. You have bet everything you have that that fragile set of circumstances will hold. And that's actually kinda comforting. It's impossible to have a bad flight that landed in the intended manner.

But here's what's really bizarre. Apparently I'm the only person on the planet that finds airplane seats comfortable. I'm not talking about just the sort of comfortable where you can live with it, but the kind of comfortable where you begin to seriously consider buying one and installing it in your car. Really comfortable. And I mean coach seats. Not even business class. I flew Southwest this week, which is all one class and open seating, but even on United where coach packs you in like you're in the backseat of a mid-90s extended cab pickup, it's comfy. Ya'll can shoot me with the tranquilizer dart, radio-tag me, and take me in for further study now if you want.

This wasn't always the case. When I was younger I practically had to schedule a chairopractor visit at each end as a part of a vacation. Now I'm five foot four and not getting any taller (I come from a large family of small people). Seriously, our family reunions have an average height of 5'5".

My point is, airplane seats were apparently designed for someone with my precise build and set of bone/soft tissue injuries. For everyone else, they are desgined to give you those injuries. Seats in cars nowadays are like forward controls on a motorcycle--a big fuck-you to short people, since both assume you're at least 5'6". The one pleasant exception is the Chevy HHR, which has sensible seats and a headrest that doesn't actively attempt to break your neck. Seats on airplanes are a big fuck-you to all human beings, or at least they're supposed to be. I'm sure if the airlines read this, they'll commission a redesign of the seats. But until they do, the infamous airplane seat is incredibly comfortable to me.

It was funny, when we got into San Diego, I stood up to let the people next to me out. Quickly. In the middle of this motion, I began to anticipate a sound whack on the head from the overhead bins. As it turned out, the bins were barely higher than the top of my head and I did not crack myself in the skull. I did literally come two paper-thicknesses away from it, though.

Wild, huh? I never woulda thunk, but this little discovery of being the same size as the crash dummy they designed the plane around means that the actual act of flying is a blast.

Well, except for the bathroom. So damn tiny you can't even put both feet next to each other, but have to put one foot half on top of the other.

Small Town Southern Man

Alan Jackson's video would be embedded here if embedding weren't disabled for it. Here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUhaqUHGeQU

I just got back from my cousins' graduation party. Four of 'em graduated this year, and two of them (the closest two) were among the first third-generation of graduates from the school. Of course, "party" in our family is code for "pig roast and a keg." Since it was Frontier Days, there was not a CO2 cartridge to be found within literally 50 miles of Colorado Springs, not even for a beer deliveryman's family, so one of the boys got one in Lamar and drove in with it. If they hadn't found one, I'm pretty sure someone would have either shot a hole in the keg or attached the shop air compressor to it.

I always forget how much I love being out in the sticks with the ranchers until I go back. The spaces are big, the buildings small, the trucks required and the roads undivided or dirt. Life is a hell of a lot more simple. The high school had its biggest graduating class ever with 58 graduates. They had all been going to school together since they started school. Peyton is a small town. I also noticed that my family are all very short, since it was the first time I'd seen 'em since elementary school. They're good people.

You might be a redneck

If you hide under your trailer when there's a tornado warning, you might be a redneck.

If you have a truck that couold haul that trailer across a boulder fieled at 70 miles an hour without flinching, but you hide under the trailer anyway, you are a redneck.

If the amount of CDs you take with you on vacation is measured in gallons, you might be a redneck.

If you have ever oiled your boots with 10w-30 because you had it laying around, you might be a redneck.

If your lawnmower always starts on the first kick, you might be a redneck.

Hispanics have large, close-knit families. So do white trash. If we know any family at all, we know 300 relatives. As far as we're concerned, if your third-cousin's brother-in-law married an Osmond, the Osmonds are now your family and are entitled to come to your annual pig roasts. If your great aunt's grand-daughter is graduating from high school, you are invited and will think nothing of driving 250 miles round trip to get there.

Getting the Family Together

This is what happens when you get my family together.

At my great aunt's 60th wedding anniversary, she invited the whole family. That meant four different clans. If you're familiar with the town of Lamar in southeast Colorado, they own a tree farm there.

135 blood relatives came. A large portion of the town also showed up, including the whole fire department.

The aboveground pool had frogs in it.... that were put there on purpose. It was a game for all the youngsters (you know, up to 25 year old or so) to try to catch them. Whoever got the most would get an extra bag of fireworks that night.

The food and seating were shaded by tents-- tarps duct taped between 2x4s. Not because they couldn't afford proper tents, but because that would take more effort. We barbequed three sorts of canned meat and had an impromptu chilli cookoff. My second cousin Dusty won. The whole affair was being cooled by a swamp cooler-- the one they had just unbolted from their roof and set on blocks facing the tents.

After we ate, we decided to ride ATVs. Everyone who didn't bring their ATV decided to figure out a way to attach a gas motor from one of the old lawnmowers (five lawnmowers, one patch of grass on the whole property) to anything with wheels by some kind of belt. That and slingshots made from the elastic out of old underwear (again, not because nobody could afford it, but because if it don't fit no more, do something else with it) kept folks entertained the rest of the day.

At some point in the late afternoon, several young fellas from my mother's father's uncle's side of the family (gettin' complicated?) pulled up late for the party in their pickup truck, saying "Sorry we're late, Danny forgot the cannon."

...?

Yes, they had built a cannon out of some old pipe, bolted it to the pickup bed, and proceeded to start shooting bowling balls across the field. Then we'd race to go find them on our ATVs (or lawnmower-bicyles) and bring 'em back so we'd get to shoot. The fire marshall had a good time with this, too.

Speaking of whom, bear in mind that all fireworks that blow up or leave the ground (all the fun ones) have been banned in Colorado for around a decade. That's why the whole fire department was invited-- so folks could shoot off bottle rockets and other, bigger ordinance and not get arrested. Wine and dine them, and they'll give you permission, with or without a licencse.

It got dark, and the best frog-catcher got extra fireworks. There was quite a show. The aforementioned four-year old (see previous post), being only three at the time, was only allowed sparklers and smoke bombs... and the occasional small cracker when there were a few adults around.

At some point shortly after midnight, folks started packing up to leave.

This all seemed perfectly logical and rational to us, even the guys (no relation, just local boys) who thought about seeing if a generator would run on Jack. My point is, get much of my family together, and whether they admit it or not, there will be many redneck moments.

How about yours?