"Arrrr" is for "Redneck"

The Appalachian appellation redneck has a kick-ass history. Beyond the standard ‘sunburned neck from day labor’ theory, there are several possible roots of the word, including, believe or not, a Celtic one. No, leprechauns did not sneak in and paint some poor sod burner’s neck red. Yes, our skin reflects our moods rather accurately. Light the ire of any Son of Erin and you’ll soon discover what redneck means. We all flare quickly and righteously.

There are many similarities in temperament between the Irish and rednecks. Both appreciate a decent home-brew, are fiercely loyal to their clans, disdain nosy government, and are ever ready to defend their turf with a verbal barb or bullet.

Obviously not all rednecks are Irish, and many of these same traits apply to Scots and others. There's a reason I'm treating 'redneck' more like an attitude and not a nationality - when you're as friendly as rednecks are, your gene pool gets a bit muddy.

Just like rednecks, Irish clans are based not on blood but on friendship. Stop in any Irish pub and you’ll quickly find that out. Everyone’s a friend-in-the-making. And they don’t care if your family is blueblood or redneck. Cross them, however, and you’re done.

On the rare occasion anyone crossed him, I remember my Celtic father’s neck turning a deep scarlet, the color soon flowing up to his face. One corner of his mouth would curl, much like pulling the hammer back on a shotgun. It seemed his words alone drew blood.

“I was supposed to go to that meeting,” he once purred to an arrogant coworker, “but they found out my parents were married.”

You may be surprised to discover rednecks living as far north as New York, but the idea that they're limited to the South is untrue. Once they figured out how to put chains on snow tires and chill beer in a snowdrift, they were everywhere. And while the borough of Brooklyn runs deep in our bloodstream, the Appalachian mountain chain runs deep into New York State, so we're closer than two fleas on a coonhound. The accents on these particular fleas, however, are a bit tough to decipher.

An Irish New Yorker moving out to the country is not a huge leap, nor is it a new idea. Early in American history, cities often encouraged their rowdier, warlike inhabitants to ‘Go West,’ where they acted as barricades or buffers between civilization and the Indians. Rednecks neighbored Redskins, bonded, traded baseball cards, and did just fine.

Yo, Vinnie, hold my beer and watch this.

England shipped its rowdies to Australia. New York City used the Taconic State Parkway. Not sure what rowdy, warlike things my parents did to be encouraged to ‘Go West’, but by the time they got there the Indians had been replaced by a much more frightening group – the Yuppies.

Comedian Jeff Foxworthy defines redneck as "a glorious lack of sophistication.” Seems to me that after a while, living in the ‘civilized’ city can get tiresome. Everyone needs to let their hair down, scratch, and dig in the mud once in a while. Whether you ever put your city shoes back on again, well, that’s your call.

For me, through the years, the term has moved from being a derogatory accusation to a badge of pride. It has taken me a long time to represent my roots, but I’m finally there.

Hell, yeaaaaaah! ….You got a problem wit dat?

Showdown on Bedford Park Boulevard

It was a crisp fall morning in the Bronx, a bit cold but still nice enough to have the windows open before we left for school. I was living off campus in a three-story brownstone, starting my first year at Fordham University. My roommates had already headed out and I was about to sit down to a quick breakfast. I went back to my bedroom for a moment to get a book. By the time I returned, a squirrel had planted himself squarely in the middle of the kitchen table. He must have climbed the fire escape and entered the open window. Judging from the puddle on the table, he had either sampled my orange juice or marked his new-found territory in a most vulgar, animalistic manner. Now he was eating my toast.

It was probably just as well my roommates weren’t there, since they were city girls and not up to dealing with wild animals. Still, it was just a fluffy squirrel and they might have thought it was cute the way it nibbled away at my breakfast.

“Shoo!” I commanded. The squirrel ignored me and continued stuffing rye bread in his cheeks.

“Shoo!” I repeated, this time waving my hands and approaching a bit closer.

He stopped rather deliberately, looking a bit peeved, and swiveled his head slowly to peer at the interruption to his repast. In all my country years of squirrel interaction, I’d never actually looked one in the eye. They usually scurried away rather meekly, fearful of a big, mighty human. But this squirrel’s stare was as cold as his tail was fluffy. I was suddenly reminded I was no longer in the country but rather nose-to-nose with a New York City rodent. A fur-coated, bling-tailed rat in the hood.

“Shoo!” I said again, not sure what else to say. I did not speak squirrel, especially city-squirrel.

Without losing eye contact, he tossed the toast to the side and turned methodically, squaring his body to face me. I sensed a showdown.

They're so cute, aren't they? Little bundles of fur, scampering about our yards, scurrying up trees, stealing birdseed, terrorizing our dogs. Little, vicious, rabid, conniving bundles of fur. We feed them, we mock them, we sometimes even eat them. They live perched on the fence between fluffy cuteness and the food chain. Sometimes a pet, sometimes an entree.

Usually we’re fine with them. We’re bigger and scarier. They haven’t figured out that we are absolutely petrified at the thought of being bitten by one of them. Like little babies, they’re adorable, but with a dark side not often mentioned in polite company.

In our back woods my dad once cut down a tree that a squirrel was residing in. The squirrel leaped from the falling tree and ran for what he thought was another tree. It was my dad’s leg. He got about hip high before he realized trees don’t usually wear jeans, gave my dad the squirrel equivalent of the ‘Oh, shit!’ look, and leaped again. Happy ending – my dad lived, the squirrel relocated, and the balance of power between Man and Mini-fur-things was maintained.

In the city, however, Darwin’s pecking order had mutated into something I had never seen before. Unblinking, his cheeks full of bread, the urban squirrel waddled toward me, swinging his hips like a gunslinger, a pudgy stare worthy of William Shatner. He stopped at the edge of the table, still glaring, and made a weird chirping sound. It sounded something like, “Bring it on.”

No way, I thought, am I getting dissed by an arrogant metro-rodent. I laughed and said, “You are SO out of your league, tree-freak.” I know he understood because he tapped his chest twice and chirped again. Then he drew in a deep breath, as deep as he could take with a mouth full of stolen rye.

Suddenly he leapt from the table and ran straight at me, chirping nonstop at the top of his little Bronx lungs, spewing bits of toast everywhere. Surprised and stumbling, I backpedalled into the hallway as fast as I could. He was inches from me when I slammed the bathroom door in his face, knocking still more bread bits from his cheek. He scratched viciously at the door, calling me all sorts of bad names in squirrel-talk.

Finally the chattering stopped. I waited a few more minutes, looking about for a weapon with which to defend myself. I thought about tossing a towel over him. Not my towel, of course. Could be risky if he escaped, so I passed on the idea. I grabbed my roommate’s toothbrush and peeked out the door.

The fur-pig was scarfing down the rest of my breakfast. He glowered back at me, trying to chirp, but was too full to say much. Instead, in a gesture of squirrelly rebellion, he pushed over my glass of juice, as if to say, “Let this be a warning.”

I thought I could slink down the hallway to my room, get my keys and leave. He saw me try to escape and jumped to the floor again, running toward me, amazingly quick for a chubby chunk of fur. I was forced to retreat back into the bathroom.

This went on for nearly forty minutes. That corpulent bad-ass held rule over my house, keeping me trapped in the bathroom, while he trashed the kitchen. I was now quite late for class. Finally he was gone.

The first facet of an event is the experience itself. The rest, the sizzle to the steak as it were, is in the telling. I suppose I could have lied to my teacher, invented a believable story to explain my tardiness. In hindsight that would have served me better than the peals of laughter that met my truth.

And to whomever left the stuffed squirrel in my seat in class the next day, I will find you.