It’s probably because I was raised in a household dominated by a mother and three older sisters, none of whom were tomboys. But even if they are not the cause, I still choose to blame them for my failure to take an interest in a lot of the “guy things” in which most young men are supposed to be interested.

Don’t get me wrong. I was a tough kid. On the playground at school, I loved to play tackle football without pads and “king of the mountain” where the object was the push everyone else off of a raised platform on the playground. By the time I was in the third grade, my mother ceased buying me “good clothes” for school because they would just get ripped and filthy on the playground.

But other “guy things” did not appeal to me. This was brought home to me recently when my wife and I watched a DVD of “Gran Torino,” a movie starring Clint Eastwood, who also directed. Although the language was rough and the plot a bit violent, I liked the movie’s main theme of breaking down prejudices, and I’ve liked Clint Eastwood since the days he was Rawley Yates.

The “extras” on the DVD included comments by most of the male actors — including Eastwood, about the cars they had loved. As we watched it, my wife asked me what car I loved as a teenager.

“I can’t think of one,” I said. While I like some cars like the Mustang, Corvette and the Thunderbird of the 1950s, there is no particular make of car that I dreamed of someday owning and being able to pick up good-looking chicks by just driving it.

I blame this on my mother. From the time I was 3 years old, she drilled into me the need to buy things that were practical, defined by her as anything that is inexpensive but functional. That’s why to this day, I drive a beat-up car simply because it satisfies my two expectations for a car: It gets me where I want to go and it doesn’t guzzle gasoline. Besides, I’m too married and way too old to be picking up chicks. If I did, they would have to ride in the back seat since the door on the passenger side does not work.

Hunting and fishing are two other “guy things” that never appealed to me. As a boy growing up on a farm, I should be embarrassed to say I never enjoyed hunting. After all, when I was young, the first day of rabbit and pheasant hunting season each November was like a holiday.

Dad also wasn’t much of a hunter, but he never discouraged me from hunting. I went rabbit hunting one time and didn’t get a rabbit. That satisfied my desire for hunting. We used to keep a shotgun on the cornpicker to gun down any pheasants that flew up in front of the picker. Dad got a few birds with the shotgun, but I never did. I always said that the birds startled me too much to fire in time, but if the truth be known, I never enjoyed killed things, even chickens — and I’ve killed a lot of those.

I’m not opposed to hunting. Thanks to my son-in-law, I have had some really good meals of venison and even bear. I want him to keep hunting. I’m always willing to help him eat whatever he kills.

Guys are supposed to be fighters, but I have only been in one fistfight in my entire like. It was so one sided that my role was mostly that of human punching bag instead of worthy opponent. But I don’t regret that one fight. I had been out with a young lady whose old boyfriend was waiting at her house when I brought her home. It was clear that this goon was going to hit her, something that I will not tolerate. So, instead of hitting her, he hit me. As far as I was concerned, that was a good tradeoff. Sadly, I think the girl eventually went back to this brute.

I don’t like boxing. NASCAR bores me. I’m too cheap to play poker for money and I have zero interest in sitting at a bar and getting drunk.

What kind of guy am I? What can I say? I’m my mother’s son. Wimp and all.

JOHN CANNON can be reached at jcannon@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2649.