Northern Rednecks

I actually wrote this post several months ago after some deeply disturbing encounters, and I thought it would be appropriate to share it with all of you now. Some of you have heard of the incidents mentioned below, but for those uninitiated, read with caution.

We’ve all heard the jokes about them. Jeff Foxworthy has made his career at their expense. But there’s one thing that has been unclear about the nature of Rednecks in America: do they only exist in the South? Sadly, I have come to discover that they do not. This, along with other disturbing truths about Rednecks, have come to light during my first four months living in Wisconsin. Fear greatly, gentle reader, for what I am about to reveal to you will be both painful and horrifying.

I suppose it all really began when I was in high school. Every year we received a Christmas card from my mother’s cousin featuring a picture of her one and only son. I watched him grow up, felt bonded to him on some deep, psychological level—after all, we were sort of related. Then came the fateful Christmas where it all came crashing down, and I was forced to face the awful truth. The holiday season began as any other, Christmas cards pouring in from friends and family near and far. I don’t know who it was who opened my mother’s cousin’s Christmas card, but I most certainly remember my reaction upon seeing it. Fear and revulsion warred with confusion and sorrow within my soul. What was I seeing? Surely it couldn’t be…but it was. My mother’s cousin’s only son was kneeling on the ground outside in a camouflage jumpsuit. For a moment, my eyes could not make sense of the rest of the scene. Was it really? Surely not! But it was. His hands were holding the antlers of a dead deer, whose head was twisted at an unnatural angle. He had killed his first deer, and they had immortalized it in print. That was the first inkling I had that Rednecks had not only taken residence up North but had also infiltrated my family, for what is more Redneck than a dead deer Christmas card?

I wish I could say this was the end of the story, but alas, dear reader, I must frighten you further. After “the Christmas card incident”, I convinced myself that this must be an anomaly. Even if Rednecks had infiltrated the North, my mother’s cousin’s son was surely an aberration in our otherwise pristine gene pool. Then I moved to Wisconsin. It was clear almost from the beginning that the Redneck infestation of the North was far more widespread than I had initially anticipated. Having taken a job at the local high school, I received my first introduction to an actual, functioning, non-made-for-TV-or-film FFA group. Within my first month at the school, they had already had their own form of “spirit week” in which many students actually—and with pride—dressed up as Rednecks. Even more disturbing was the fact that many of them did not need to dress up. Also included in the “FFA Week” activities was a petting zoo, consisting of animals brought in from students’ homes, which nearly all of my study hall students begged to attend. Well, it was to be expected, I told myself. After all, this is an agricultural area. It makes sense that many students would be future farmers and that they would have access to farm animals. That does not necessarily make them Rednecks. But then came the day—Red Tuesday—when I could no longer deny the truth.

It started out relatively small, though at the time I could not believe my eyes. I was reading the announcements at school and came across one that astounded me. “Any student wishing to take off school for hunting season must give at least two days’ advanced notice.” What?! I had never heard of such a thing! Get off school to go hunting?! Where was I?! I had come to understand that there would be people who would be killing deer during hunting season. After all, my mother’s cousin’s son had done so all those years ago. But allowing students to take off school for it? Unheard of! I mean, what were weekends for? At that point, I realized the Rednecks had gotten to the school. I had been disturbed before, but now I was beginning to be afraid. Was there nowhere I could be safe? I left school as quickly as possible that afternoon and fled to my grandparents’ home to rest up and recover from my traumatic day. It was not without some trepidation that I drove to church that night for my Youth Committee meeting. The church is located on the prairie and boasted many farmers and agricultural-types among its members. In fact, more than half the people who would be present at the meeting were of that ilk. Thankfully, they proved once again to be merely farmers, not Rednecks; and I was able to escape the meeting unscathed and make my way to Target—the Mecca of non-Rednecks.

However, the safe environs of the church and Target had lulled me into a false sense of security. It was this ersatz hope of well-being that caused me to need a full five minutes to notice the truck in front of me. It was a beat-up Chevy truck whose cab windows were blocked, so I could not see the passengers within. As if scales had fallen from my eyes, I suddenly realized what it was that was blocking those cab windows. Again I thought Is that?…surely not. But it was. At least ten dead deer carcasses were piled on top of each other in the bed of the truck. Some of their legs were sticking out of the pile, waving in the breeze of the truck’s wake as if to taunt me. I could see blood smeared across one of the pelts and fought the urge to gag. I had thought I was so safe! I had thought that no more “Redneck bad” incidents could plague me…at least for the rest of the day! Yet here I was, with what I thought was the worst evidence of Northern Redneck-ery I had ever seen. It may have been the worst, but it was certainly not the most traumatic. I called several friends for moral support in my time of need, but I got only voicemails. Then, hope sprang anew—my phone was ringing! Thinking it was one of my friends, I quickly answered. It was my mother.

Great! I thought. She’ll understand how awful this situation is! But it was not to be. Instead, this was to be the most traumatic event of the entire day, possibly my entire life. My mother laughed. She did not laugh with me over the absurdity of the situation. No, she laughed at me for having such a violent reaction. She was surprised, she said, at the number of deer in the back of the truck. She didn’t think they’d be allowed to take so many and must be transporting some of them for someone else. But honestly, what did I expect? I was in the country. A sinking feeling entered my body at her words, and I had a feeling it was my heart falling through my chest and landing somewhere deep in my bowels. A dark truth was beginning to glimmer into light. A truth I had ruthlessly relegated to my subconscious the day my mother’s cousin’s Christmas card had arrived in the mail. Perhaps my mother’s cousin’s only son was not, in fact, an anomaly. Perhaps the Redneck gene had infiltrated much farther into my gene pool than I had ever dared to imagine. Perhaps, and it was becoming more of a certainty now, the Redneck gene had corrupted my own mother’s gene pool and was even now coursing through my veins, polluting my bloodstream! I was beginning to hyperventilate. I had to calm down, or I would run off the road. Maybe I should run off the road. Put an end to the gene pool before it was too late. I could be willing to sacrifice myself for the greater good. But no, I’d risk taking other innocent people with me in my headlong rush toward ethnic cleansing. Sterilization. It was my only option. I had already been considering it after so many hours with the wretched teenagers in my study halls. I would do my part to prevent this contagion from spiraling out of control and infecting countless others.

By the time I got home I had gotten myself under control. I reviewed the information I had gathered that day, both verbal and (ugh) visual. I had shown no signs of latent Redneck-ery that I could tell. Was it possible I hadn’t gotten the gene? After all, my father was a town boy, and I took after him in many respects. Maybe I was safe. Maybe I wouldn’t have to pursue personal ethnic cleansing or sterilization. The more I thought about it, the more certain I became. I was not a Redneck. Nor would I ever become one. Even if Redneck was in my genes, I didn’t have to live like one. My mother had managed to become almost completely assimilated, despite her occasional dead deer misstep. She clearly had the gene in full force but had somehow managed to contain it, or at least manage it, so that it was not noticeable. I would do the same. And I would do it better because I would never become accustomed to dead deer carcasses, either in person or in print. I would never talk about hunting season as if it were a normal activity that even non-Redneck persons would participate in, nor would I laugh at anyone who observed how completely abnormal and revolting it is to see dead deer, both in person and in print. I would survive this. I may have lost my innocence about the presence of Rednecks, both in the North and within my own family; but I would not succumb to its insidious sway. I would never become a Redneck.