I know that right now, there are those among you thousands of eager readers that are deeply concerned for us. You might be asking yourself, ” Why did these two nice boys label themselves Rednecks? I simply detest redneckish behavior. Do they really want to marry their cousin and live in a house trailer, eating fish sticks and drinking beer with their Grandma?”
If you are talking to yourself, you should really have that looked into.
Common stereotypes are pretty rough on us rednecks. “If’n you were on the local news after the tornado ripped yer house right off it’s wheels, you might be a redneck!” Some city folk figure we’re like some sort of different species that are unable to climb high enough up the evolutionary ladder to reach the decent human being rung.
I wanted to come up with something clever to refute these claims, so I immediately turned to Wikipedia. As we all know, Wikipedia is definitely the ultimate, infallible authority on everything. It wouldn’t be on the intranets if it wasn’t 100% true! As usual, I wasn’t disappointed. I even found a blurb about Alberta, our stompin’ grounds:
Alberta and Saskatchewan are sometimes said to be the home of rednecks in Canada, due to its similarities to Texas (oil, farming, and ranching). Like rural people elsewhere, some Canadians continue to see this as a highly offensive term while others have claimed it and proudly describe themselves as rednecks. This difference often arises because the former consider the term to connote racist beliefs while the latter believe it implies traditional rural values (e.g. work ethic, honesty, self-reliance, simplicity).
Now we’re down to the crux of the matter. Work ethic, honesty, self reliance, simplicity.
And, of course, beer gift baskets. And high speed internet. But I don’t really like fish sticks, and Grandma only drinks Red wine on special occasions.
I will admit to being a high-tech redneck, but I never once dated my cousins. I just never found Brian or Randy that attractive.
I never lived in a house trailer, but I do have an old half-dead Chevy parked out back waiting for someone to put it out of it’s misery. I wear a ballcap and t-shirt most of the time, but I can use fancy words like tintinnabulation. I might make some homemade beer once in a while, but I order personalized beer labels and coasters to go with it.
I don’t own any guns, But I like to watch things blow up.
I guess what I’m getting at is, Rednecks can be complicated critters. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go slop the hogs, and then drink some beer whilst I read Scientific American. There’s a good article on the Semantic Web this issue. Come on down to the Redneck Bar and Grill sometime and we’ll have a beer.