COUNTRY BOY

Having been born in Tennessee, South of Nashville I found myself without an identity. I wasn't true country, because I didn't chew tobacco like the men nor dip snuff like the gals. Those guys could spit like champions. When you talked to a spitter you always had to check to see which way the wind was blowing. Some of them didn't “gob spit” but liked to “spray spit,” in either case it was your responsibility to stay out of the way because; when a man’s gotta spit tobacco he doesn't have time to check if there is anyone in the way.

I suppose if at least if some of those country gals would have washed up once in a while and run a comb through their hair, and wiped the snuff off their chin they might have looked a little better. I didn't court any of them, because if I had they would have expected me to show some affection, and I just couldn't bring myself to kiss a gal with a snuff stick in her mouth (even if she took it out while kissing).

Now as a boy I must admit, it was interesting to watch them country folks sit on the porch and enjoy their tobacco break, which usually lasted most of the day. Back in those days you took your entertainment where you could find it, and my sense of humor allowed me to get some pleasure from that. There was one other drawback that held me back from being proper country.

I was partly raised in the city where there were electricity, and ice boxes for blocks of ice. You didn't have to clean the lamp chimney, and put coal oil in it before you lit it. You just flipped a switch to have light.

Try as I would, I couldn't ever be true country, because I had too much city in me, and on the other hand I had enough country in me, that challenged the foolishness of city life.

Being raised as I was, I had the best and worst of both worlds, that made me what I turned out to be, believing what Paul the Apostle said;

2 Thessalonians 3:10 If any one will not work - - neither shall he eat.