Country cred is shaky

Mike James

My wife rolls her eyes every time I roll out my country credentials.

You’re no country boy, she tells me. She should know, having grown up herself in a rural setting, riding horses to the general store down the road and helping her father from time to time in the field.

But ... but ... but ... I sputter, in a futile attempt at establishing my bucolic bona fides. Because I did spend much of my childhood deep in rural Tennessee, attending a school of 300 juvenile souls from first through 12th grades, jouncing down dirt roads on the bus to get there.

In the end, however, I grudgingly admit that I was little more than a transplanted townie, albeit one whose young eyes saw country ways as the norm and did his best to fit in. In many ways it must have made a comical sight.

There was the day my sister and I learned to spit, and practiced our new skill as we trudged home from the bus stop.

Imagine a crew-cut, freckle-faced boy of about 7 peppering the ground with unmentionable deposits dredged up with that sort of rasping, gargling, throat-clearing noise more generally associated with good old boys wearing gimme caps.

While you’re at it, imagine the little blond girl, just a year older, walking beside him — a child whose book bag already is more likely to include books by Anthony Trollope and Henry Fielding than Dr. Seuss — matching her brother projectile for gelatinous projectile.

Needless to say our mother was not amused and vigorously discouraged us from displaying our spitting prowess.

What most people would think of as pleasant outdoor pastimes were often for me times of trial. Our hollow was overrun with blackberry bushes, and my mother, talented and enthusiastic in the kitchen, enjoyed preserving the berries. That meant she needed a corps of pickers to gather the fruit.

Blackberries may be the single tastiest food on earth. Nonetheless, when my mother appeared with a bucket and my picking orders, I approached the bushes with trepidation.

Because where there are blackberries, there also are June bugs. Which I hated.

A June bug is good at one thing — finding the best berries on the bush. They prefer not to be disturbed at mealtime.

A hearty shake of the bush encouraged most of them to seek sustenance elsewhere, but there were always a few that wouldn’t take the hint. The invasion of a pair of giant hands in the midst of their meal was enough to send them into buzzing spasms of indignation.

Neither of my parents had rural roots. Living in the country was a choice my father made just because he liked it. I suppose we kids liked it well enough, but outdoors, for me, was the place I went when I wasn’t reading.

Oh, I tried to bring out my inner Tom Sawyer, even tying a bent pin once to a length of string and dipping it into the brook, expecting to draw it out with a fish flopping on the homemade hook. But there weren’t any fish of any size, just some water striders skating about. Their entertainment value was exhausted within minutes so I ended up back indoors, reading about Tom and Huck’s exploits.

Still, I reserve the right to talk the talk, since during those formative years I walked the walk.

A former colleague once challenged my use of the term “Y’all.” I’m pretty sure she had me pegged for a poser clumsily trying to ingratiate himself with the locals. But the term is part of my vocabulary and I’m keeping it, along with my taste for Moonpies.

MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or at (606) 326-2652.

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