What's a true hillbilly?

Interesting read today from Buzzfeed, which apparently has a West Virginian on staff.

I think I’ll weigh in on this one.

1. Your Great-Grandad … wasn’t a banker

Nope. Sure wasn’t. Two were preachers. Others were a coal miner and steelworker.

2. You learned how to fire a minimum of four guns by the age of 12

BB gun? Of course. This was my first (of many) bb guns, naturally.

22? My grandfather (also a preacher) had a .22 rifle by his side of the bed, and a 15-acre farm surrounded by deep woods. My brother and I put it to a lot of use, to be sure.

12 gauge? My other grandfather (also a steelworker, and bad ass WWII vet to boot) had an old single-shot 12 gauge that he called Big Bertha, on account of its prodigious kick. Knocked me on my ass first time I fired it.

Handgun? Actually, no. They didn’t have much use in our clan. Too hard to hunt squirrel (more on this later) with one.

3. Guns are simply a part of life…

Yep. Not that they were celebrated in a “card carrying member of the NRA kind of way.” There wasn’t any sense of patriotic duty of having a gun. They were just always there.

4. You’ve eaten …

Deer? Yep. In everything from lasagna to spaghetti sauce to hamburgers to meatloaf.

Bear? Nah. I actually can’t recall any of us ever going bear hunting.

Squirrel? If you’ve never had fried squirrel with squirrel gravy, homemade mashed potatoes and string beans cooked with bacon grease, I don’t know what to do with you.

5. You’ve never eaten skunk, but you know someone who has.

No I haven’t, and yes I do. I have eaten groundhog, possum and raccoon. I didn’t like any of them. But did I mention how good fried squirrel is?

6. There is only one kind of tea.

Actually, two: Lipton’s or, in a pinch, Luzianne’s. And it goes without saying it should have enough sugar to put a hummingbird into a coma.

7. You’ve had moonshine, the real stuff, and yes it’s better than sunshine.

Well, yeah, but how do you define “good” when it comes to shine? I’ve had stuff that could power a lawn mower, and I’m hesitant to call it “good.” But does it do what it’s designed to do? Both in providing small engine locomotion and instilling it people an over abundance of courage and candor, the answer is a resounding yes.

8. You’ve shit in multiple outhouses.

Who hasn’t?

9. You grew up in a log cabin in a holler.

No and no. But…

10. “Holler” is how you say “hollow.”

What’s a hollow?

11. During the day, you hunted for crawdads in creeks.

A word or two about proper crawdad hunting technique: the trick is to stir up as little creek silt as possible. So you have to wade in barefoot (this is a post about hillbillies, after all.)

Once you’re in the water, you’re looking for medium- to large-sized rocks—as flat as possible. Then, using one hand, you lift it from the creekbed. As …. slowly … and gently …. as …. possible. Look, you’re going to have some silt; but you have to keep it to a minimum so as not to A) alert the crawdad, and B) make the water so cloudy that you can’t see the crawdad before he’s had a chance to take off.

Once you’ve found one, put your hand down in the water as far away from him as you can, approaching from—and this is crucial—behind him with index finger and thumb extended. You want to grab quickly and firmly with each digit in the “armpit” of each of his claws, that way he has a harder time pinching you. If you do get pinched (and, contrary to common sense, the medium-sized ones hurt much more than the big guys), resist the temptation to flinch and fling him off. Man up. Take the pain. Accept it as the cost of doing business.

(Oh, and where I grew up, it wasn’t a “crick.” We said creek, just like Yankees do.)

12. … you’ve had (a water moccasin) slither between your legs…

While I’ve never had a cotton mouth swim through my legs, I’ve done battle with more than a few common watersnakes. (In fact, water moccasins are not native to West Virginia. We only have two venomous snakes: the rattlesnake, and the copperhead.)

Now, I hesitate to describe any animal as “mean.” After all, animals only behave as animals were designed to behave. Ascribing emotions to them is not just scientifically invalid, it leads to regrettable human behavior like lopping off the heads of docile (and ecologically beneficial) black snakes out of foolish fear. That being said, watersnakes have a nasty disposition.

13. … you hunted for nightcrawlers … amongst fireflies.

Indeed. But, please, they are lightning bugs. Not fireflies.

14. Your grandfather was a coal miner…

I buck the trend here. The only member of my immediate family who mined coal was a maternal great-grandfather. He lived to be 102. Needless to say, he didn’t have Black Lung.

15. You bathed (in a cast iron stove)

No again. Although we were bathed in kitchen sinks as babies.

16. You have (thousands) of cousins …. and, 17. But you’ve never had sex with any of them

Yes. But with that many, how can you really say for sure?

18. … you are never, ever, comfortable in New York City

Here’s the thing: I’ve traveled all over the country. Been to many of the big cities numerous times. And, no, I never feel completely comfortable in any of them. Too many people, too little greenery. But there’s this notion, often espoused by urbanites, that small town, small state folks like myself are hopelessly backward and helplessly out-of-water in big cities. That’s just not true.

Let me put it another way: I can survive a heck of a lot better being dropped in the middle of a random big city with which I am unfamiliar than a person who grew up in the city being dropped in the middle of the wilderness. Now that’s a fact.

21. This will always make a grown Hillbilly man cry

I’ll just say this: my allergies always seem to hit me particularly hard when “Take Me Home, Country Roads” is played. Also this song, and this one.