by "Buck"

February 20, 2004

It's good to know that even though I'm not living around the region anymore, the home folks are still upholding the old standards that were laid out for me as the way to live my life.  When all else fails and the ammo in the debate in the arena of ideas is used up-resort to a fist-fight outside the meeting room.  That's apparently what happened at the Appalachia Town Council meeting last week.  Here's the story from the hometown newspaper.

Then of course there's another story in the same issue about a graduate from my esteemed high school who's now accused of using a shotgun to blow away his grandparents.     What a way to go.  You lived to be in your late 80's and you're killed in your own house with a shotgun by your grandson.   Holy Shit.

I don't know if this guy will be convicted, but it's the first time I remember anyone back home being charged with a crime that could get him the death penalty.   

Most of the crime as I was growing up involved booze and drugs.    OxyContin (aka. Hillbilly Heroin) hadn't been heard of yet, but there were plenty of weird drugs that people would use to get whacked out.   Cocaine, heroine, and crack were pretty much out of the price range for the hometown folk during the 80's.     Marijuana, pot, Mary Jane, dope-or as my dad always referred to it "Reefer" was the drug of choice among the local white trash.    I think that's what it was called in the 50's.    Others I knew resorted to huffing paint thinner, gasoline, and glue fumes.    

I have never done any illicit drugs in my life.   I have partaken of my share of illegally produced, untaxed liquor and I'm addicted to nicotine, but growing up in the Nancy Reagan "Just Say No" era it just wasn't something that interested me.    I've stumbled across a couple of pot fields in my time while hunting.  However, here in Appalachia, you better watch your step if that happens.. most of them are surrounded by Vietnam style booby traps.  The last thing I needed was to have a spring-loaded homemade spear stab me in the jewels.    Screwing with a mountain crop of pot is the best way to open a complete Appalachian Jihad.

As for criminal killers who I grew up with.    There were two long standing murders that went unsolved for years.   One an elderly man was killed in his living room and the suspect took a shit in the bathroom sink...don't ask me.  Anyway, the shit (literally) caught up with him as DNA advanced and the CSI boys linked a guy I went to school with to the crime.  

Another was a little six-year old girl who was taken from her bedroom and found dead on the riverbank a few yards from her home.    She'd been sexually assaulted and police found bite marks on her rear-end.  That went unsolved for about 10-years until police finally got some break that proved it was her grandfather.  By that time the fucker was so old and decrepit that he died before going to prison.   BASTARD.

More recently a girl I went to high school with used a .357 to develop a new hole in her abusive husbands head.    She's doing time now.

The fact that I vividly remember these is evidence that it wasn't a very violent place and horrific crimes weren't all that common. 

My favorite show on TV is CSI.  However, the new season is shattering all of the character profiles and I'm not sure I like it.    Catherine was a powerful single mom with a rugged take no prisoners attitude.  She's now starting to show a little more femininity and a need to get laid, strange that she would ever be a submissive.  Sarah is apparently being reinvented as a closet drunk.     Greg the young punk who's a DNA lab genius is now trying to get into field work and in the most recent episode showed up at a crime scene looking like he slept in the clothes he passed out in after a night of drunken Sodom and Gomorra sex.       Grissom appeared to be on his way out with the Rush Limbaugh hearing disease-that's apparently been corrected.      I'm having a hard time keeping up with the subplots as the character profiles keep changing, but I guess it at least stays interesting.

Maybe I'm wrong.. but I continue to by hypnotized by Kelly Rippa.  I just think she's hot.  Others I've spoken with disagree and consider her "cute."   Whatever that means.  Am I wrong?

There are some phrases of the Appalachian Vernacular that, even though I've heard them all my life, still make me laugh.   This week my better half used one that just about caused me to piss because I hadn't heard it in many year.  She described a child in our neighborhood as "Crazy as a shithouse rat."  I'll address the nutcase child eventually, but it's been forever since I've heard that one.      How can a phrase that powerful just drop from a well-diversified vocabulary?    Perhaps it was a fear of overuse.  There are some phrases that should just be ditched entirely.  I am sickened by the overuse of the term "like."  If I hear one more nose-pierced, baggy pants, gum chewing fast food worker say, "Like do you want fries with that, like they come with the meal."   I will drive off a cliff.        Whatever happened to the term, "cute as a kitten pissing under a red wagon?"   Rarely do you hear the phrase, "Happy as two 'coons in a log."  One of my dad's favorites to warn me against hanging out with the "wrong" crowd..  "When you stir in the shit-pile, you can't help but get some on you."  Another wise hillbilly once noted in regard to one who tries to put-on like they're better than somebody.  "Funny thing about that little white speck on the top of a pile of chicken shit...that little speck is chicken shit too."     Take it to the bank.

While we're on the subject of the Appalachian vernacular, I'm constantly amazed at how different words are used to describe something in different parts of the country.   Growing up I always ate a sandwich on "light" bread.. this had no foundation in the ingredients being less fattening-it meant it wasn't "dark" bread.     We always referred to the refrigerator as the "ice box" per my grandmother who once owned a true ice box.   We always ate the meals breakfast, dinner, and supper.   Lunch was never mentioned in my early vocabulary.    I'm sure there are a hundred more that are escaping me right now.. but those were some on the top of my head.

As for that crazy kid in the neighborhood.. this girl is probably about 8 years old.  She walks up and down the street, never smiles, and never acknowledges anyone.   On the rare occasion she does speak, it's something slow and muddle tone with zero emotion.     The nosy neighbor who knows everything about everybody tells us she's on a strict diet of Ritalin and other anti-psychotic medication.  I'm almost sure we'll find her first boyfriend stabbed in the chest in a dumpster somewhere.    She's really scary.   I can envision her becoming Stephen King's "Carrie."  

I realize today's update is for shit, but I was trying to throw it together in a hurry and didn't have a lot of time. Please forgive and if you won't, Go Fuck Yourself.

Buck Out

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