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Growing up in the south I remember constantly being admonished not to "talk like them trash" and to generally avoid any behavior that could be associated with then trash".

Trash were the folks who lived on the other side of town in shacks with lots of broken automobiles in their yards, and lots of poorly clothed children.

I also evolved a dislike for "red necks" characterizing them as the guys to blew away the heroes in Easy Rider, and who have less than enlightened views about race.

Yep, my parents tried real hard to grow me into a main stream "American" complete without a southern (in this case Texas) accent. Urban. Civil. Modern.

So it was a big surprise when I saw Jeff Foxworthy's first "You Must Be A Red Neck" dvd.

I didn't think it was all that funny.

But of course the dogs lived under the front porch.

And yes, we never threw away old appliances and left them in the yard with our broken down cars. This stuff had value.someday maybe. It was a sin to throw stuff away.

And I did in fact learn to shoot squirrels with small caliber bullets so there was something left to eat.

I also developed a life long love of fried chicken, fried catfish, fried everything.

I learned how to use guns starting at age six. Every kitchen in the family had a gun rack. Most of us got to be pretty good deer and duck hunters. Never was good at quail because they fly too fast. While I wouldn't mind all those gang bangers and street criminals being disarmed, you ain't gonna touch my rifles. Come the real depression, I know where the possums are and how to cook them once I shoot them.

And fishing for dinner is an art only true Southerners appreciate. It ain't sport. Its food. Fresh food at that.

It began to dawn on me that like it or not I really was a red neck Southerner in many ways.

One aspect of red neckism is the ability to try and solve a problem in a really spectacular and inappropriate way. Like, the pickup truck is always a part of the solution to any problem. I was trying to prop up a broken down wall with a 4x4 and a 4x4 board which ended up with the wall falling down and bashing my truck. It was pretty funny. Fortunately most of the wall fell into the bed of the truck which made it easier to haul the debris to the dump.

Ever use a backhoe to straighten out a flag pole? It can be done.

A while back we decided to raise chickens in our back yard. Having grown up with fresh eggs, it only seemed right to get a few chickens, build a nice coop, feed them table scraps, and enjoy really good eggs.

Of course this raises some issues if you live in a suburban development, so forget having a rooster. Give your neighbors fresh eggs and they won't call the city zoning inspectors.

My chicken coop proved the genetic depth of my heritageof course it had to be constructed with old barn wood and rusted tin and once completed looked like it had been rotting away on the property for 100 years. I got a kick out of when a local photographer took a picture of my chicken coop and sold it as folk art.

It is said you can take a Southerner out of the South, but you can't take the South out of a Southerner.

Learn more about this author, Hugh Holub.
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