Arkansas Wedding Part 2: Got My “Hick On” and I Liked It
I didn't bother setting up my tent last night and instead just spread blankets on a trampoline out in the yard. It was a glorious night's sleep in the open air, face-up towards the stars.
BLOG POST #003 Arkansas Wedding Part 2: I Got My “Hick On” and I Liked It
How I learned to ride a motorcycle, speak Spanish and not die. Riding solo in search of adventure from Detroit to Argentina.
The next morning I wake to the sounds of flatware getting a serious tongue-lashing. The farm dogs and potbelly pig are loving the day-old wedding leftovers, as they do their best to lick plates and forks clean.
I didn't bother setting up my tent last night and instead just spread blankets on a trampoline out in the yard. It was a glorious night's sleep in the open air, face-up towards the stars.
Wherever there are people there are rules in place to help ensure we all get along. In a big city there are lots of rules. But out here people are pretty free to do what they want. This has me thinking about the various degrees of freedom.
My town back home offers some significant freedoms that other places in the world do not enjoy. In my town, you are free to insult a cop. Now, that would make you a jerk, but nonetheless, you're free to do that if so inclined. In my town you are free to run for mayor, even if you are a woman. In my town you are free to own a handgun, or a rifle, or ten rifles.
The thing is though, in my town you are not free to walk around naked all day, raise goats, piss off the back porch, play music at 5,000 watts and fire a shotgun out of your kitchen window. You can do all that here. Welcome to rural Arkansas.
Being here for a few days is a good lesson on why country folk can become so vocal about protecting their own rights and freedoms. My idea of freedom has to do with newspapers exposing the Mayor's corruption without fear of retaliation from the state. But I guess pissing off the porch is an extension of the same idea. I am free to do as I please.
However this can breed a particular attitude, for example:
"I resent those elected to power because they have all of the, well, um...power! And how dare society ever prevent me from doing whatever the fkkkk I want, whenever I want, without limitation!"
In my town, I'm pretty sure the homeowner's association won't let me grow my grass out to its natural state or paint my house orange. But I recognize the social value of these limits as well, as long as they don't get too crazy. On the other hand, I don't resent my taxes that pay for a fire department I never use, even one time. If there are first responders standing by in case the infant child six doors down starts to choke, then I am glad to pay my part for that service.
Our rights do deserve defending every day, but then I also see problems with the illusion of freedom out here in the country. Not that long ago, all of this "liberty" was fine unless you were gay or had too much genetic melanin showing. Was it really about freedom, or just freedom for those of "us" in positions of social prominence and power?
"I'll defend my right to own an AR15B-Mark-VII with 2mm/mile dispersion laser sight 140 round mag for explosive bore high tensile combat ballistic sniper rounds and infrared AutoKill(tm) human target assessor - but for the love of god and all that is good, please do not try to buy a bottle of Zinfandel on Sundee."
I'm glad the world is changing, and I do see progress all the time. But there are also a lot of signs here that indicate how much further we have to go. Riding around one afternoon, I pull over in disbelief when I see a billboard for "White Pride Radio". I have a hard time seeing the oppression and new found racial pride angle for us white folk when, for a hundred years or so "White Pride Radio" was just called, well, "radio.”
One silver lining is that I like the ideal of freedom of speech that this implies. It is good that our society protects ridiculous, horrible, profane and even willfully ignorant speech. Let us use this buffoonery to display just how important the First Amendment is in this country.
But before I get to Yankee-doodle-condescending on the good 'ole south down here, I realize that this billboard is probably just bait. I figure that it is a couple of bozos who scraped together $1,100 to poke their racist finger in the eye of the world. They want a reaction. The feed off of the controversy. It is not necessarily a damning sign of this place as a whole.
Like many things in life, I come to the conclusion it is some of both.
From what I read, protests opposing this billboard have been lively and overwhelming. I get the sense that the vast majority of people here are embarrassed, offended, and even enraged by it. Like police-escorted public KKK marches, it energizes the more kind and loving people of our general population. The "average Joe" comes out to defend the margins of our civil rights, go see the KKK clown show, and drown out the voices of those racist few.
Clearly, people here don't think this is right and don't think the billboard should exist.
But on the other hand, there it is.
As an outsider, there's a temptation to paint with a broad brush about Arkansas as a state. But then I think that can make it worse because this is exactly the recruitment tool those racists count on.
The KKK's pitch is that, "Everybody calls us hicks and hates southern white folk!"
Nope. Not true, and I won't help make that true.
In the end I think it is better to skip the stereotyping myself, and instead just join the voices who say, "This is not ok."
The funny thing is, I am not so wise and pure as I might have tried to sound here. I think there is a place for some healthy civil disobedience in the world as well. Much as I ponder how the hell an advertising company allowed them to rent this billboard, and a graphics guy designed the art, and all of the people down the line helped make this happen, the biggest thing I wonder right now is,
"Doesn't anybody in this county have a match?"
Political violence against people is never ok. That deserves nothing less than flat, unconditional condemnation. But then some spray-paint on a billboard is more of a gray area for me. I do like the high-ground of letting the sign stand as is. But I wouldn't be too heartbroken if this thing were vandalized.
My aunt's compound is a farmyard mash-up that includes a house, car-port, out buildings, and animal pens. She breeds Sarplaninacs, which are 100-pound flock guard dogs. I am reminded of how tigers are not good pets to have because they can kill a human in four seconds. These dogs are like that. Some of them are kept in cages just like a zoo because they are, "too dangerous to ever trust around people." There are goats and ducks and chickens, all running around in a bustle of jolly bucolic back-woods living.
It is nice to have time on my own with my cousin, my aunt and her new hubby. We play some very silly card games and chill out on the back porch. My cousin was raised in the burbs like myself, but has acclimated to life in the boonies pretty quickly. He loves his shotgun.
For some reason, there are about twenty jugs of expired apple cider that give us an opportunity to do some senseless target practice. My cousin seems to think that the splash pattern of these plastic containers makes a good analog for shooting human belly flesh. I'm not sure about the science of this, and I find that supposition pretty disturbing. But it is a damn lot of fun.
I decided to make a "hold my beer" video. My cousin agreed to film. I'm chewing on one of my grandpa's old-tyme cigars with the plastic tip. My baseball cap is on backwards. I holler something to the effect of "You dumb sons-of-monkey nuts!” pull the trigger and brace for the kick.
Whoops. The safety was on. This makes the video even funnier as we bust up laughing.
On the second take, I raised the rifle to my face so I could aim, and burned the crapppp out of my hand on the cigar jammed into the side of my mouth. This was also very funny. We do another eleven takes or so, filming all sorts of other questionable folly involving firearms and hillbilly hijinks. Irony is the best part because, no matter how I try to cartoon stereotypes about rural country folk, I keep burning my damn hand. Clearly the joke is on me.
It is fun to pretend that Arkansas is a whole different country and culture. But the truth is that I would gladly live out here. My aunt is a model of tolerance and freedom and love and edibles for all - with a stunning view, a pickup truck and a driveway length measured in "football fields".
Cities have a whole host of benefits and problems all their own. I guess you're just fortunate if you have the ability to choose your freedoms and can afford to find your own slice of what feels right. For my aunt, it is out here in the sticks. For another friend it is in Borneo. My best buddy lives downtown in a major city.
For me, now that I have left home, freedom is not any one place at all. It is everywhere. For the next year, freedom is the tent stuffed in my motorcycle pannier side box. It is the fact that by 3pm on some days, the thought may not yet occur to me about where I'm going to sleep that night. Freedom is the random thought that I'm vaguely supposed to be in El Salvador sometime in late November, or suddenly remembering that I have a good friend in Bogota.
Last night I slept on a trampoline under a bombastic starry-sky light show. I feel like a homeless guy with an Amex card, a full tank of gas, and 250,000 Marriott Rewards points any time I want to use them.
I have the freedom to choose my freedoms. And right now that is a contest between which is more grandiose - the half-mile stretch of road I can see thru my bike half-shield, or my own imagination of how far it can possibly take me.
NEXT POST COMING SOON: July 17, 2024
