Sunday, November 9, 2008

How I Learned to Be a Man

My first lessons in how to be a man came from my Daddy. Be a man and you’ll always be OK he said.

He was a very patient man, tended toward passive-aggressiveness, but when the time came to act, he acted. He might have been slow to move, but when he moved, he was like a force of nature. And before he acted, he had a cold stare that could cut through steel. People left the room when they saw that stare. People would start running, start jumping off buildings if necessary. The only man I ever saw insult my Mother (called her a Jezebel) ended up on his backside with about 20 stitches decorating his face later that day.

I’ve grown up to be just like my Daddy. Better watch for that cold stare.

My next teacher was George C. Wallace. He taught us Alabamians that we didn’t have to take a backseat to anybody.

“Yankees don’t put their pants on a nail and run and jump in ‘em. They put their pants on one leg at a time just like we do,” he assured Alabama boys. I was so reassured by that, growing up being called a redneck and poor white trash.

The Guvnuh taught me about liberal arrogance---the pointed-headed pseudo-intellectuals who wanted to bus us all over creation and yet sent their own kids to private schools. The effete defeatists who wanted to cut and run in Viet Nam just like those who want to cut and run from Iraq today. Those Washington bureaucrats who trampled all over states rights, who didn’t understand what Palin calls “real Americans.”

There was my Uncle Elmo, who lived in a little community called Bankston in Fayette County. He taught me to always protect myself and my loved ones.

Uncle Elmo believed in self-sufficiency. He and Aunt Ruby had a huge garden. They could have lived a year on what they had canned. They could have fed the entire county supper.

Then there was Uncle Elmo’s munitions room. He had enough weaponry and ordinance to kill everybody in the county three times over.

“Sooner or later we might have to fight ‘em again, and I’m gonna be ready,” he said.

“You think so, Uncle Elmo?’ I asked him.

“Shoot, yeah,” he said, employing his favorite phrase.

I’ve already been to my local Pelham gun-seller to stock up (there was a long line as you can imagine). When Obamer comes around to confiscate my guns, I’ll go down fighting. When they take my rifle from me, like Chuck Heston said, my hands will be cold.

Having been taught how to be a man growing up, I think I’m ready for whatever comes. I’m not worried.

6 comments:

Charles Rose said...

This is exactly the conservative foolishness I detest. You, my friend, have drunk too much of the Rush Limbaugh flavored Kool-Aid. Next thing you will say is you are a "mavrik."

Anonymous said...

I think it is odd to admire a figure such as George Wallace, and I agree that fears of Obama assaulting the 2nd Amendment are overblown. But, my Dad is a fair minded thinker and reasonable man. I don't mean to start anything, but to call him foolish is ridiculous.

Charles Rose said...

My friend, I did not say your Dad is a fool; I said that his post is foolish.

If there is one thing I cannot tolerate, especially after 34 years as an educator, it is gun toting crazies. I am fed up with these people who think Democrats are out to round up their guns by the truckload. It is pure rubbish, and I will not stand for it. I hope this moose hunting simpleton Sarah Palin goes back to Alaska and never returns (she probably thinks her state is actually a continent, the idiot)!

If your Dad wants to buy up guns, then that is his business. But he is wasting his money if he thinks Obama aims to confiscate his guns.

Fred Hudson said...

Hey Freddy---Thanks for defending your dear old Dad.

Charles---Better safe than sorry. I'm loaded for moose AND for Obama's hacks if they show up. Like I said, my hands will be cold before anyone takes my guns.

Anonymous said...

Well, I do what I can.

What, however, is the purpose behind these Republican sentiments?

Fred Hudson said...

The point of the Republican sentiments was to make fun of these simpletons. There is a direct link between George Wallace, whose era I lived under so I know what I'm talking about, and the remaining Republican race-based voters in the South(angry white men living in the past of the white rear guard fight against the civil rights movement) and in Palin's supporters. Palin is today's Wallace. Her slavish followers are yesterday's Wallaceites.