by Annie Smith
• Don’t take along your old broom when you move to a different home. It’s bad luck, usually in the form of pesky neighbors who want to borrow every new kitchen appliance you buy.
• When you give someone a knife as a present, put a penny with it to bring the new owner good luck. Rufus McKinney once got a penny with a knife—and only two days later he found three cents in a truck stop urinal.
• Carry bread and salt into your new home for good luck, and also for salt-sandwich snacks in case neighbors drop over to welcome you.
• When you visit somebody, always leave out the same door you came in. Going out another door is real bad luck. Wiley Watkins went out a different door at the courthouse during his divorce trial—and the next morning his wife dropped the divorce.
• If a pregnant woman is big in the butt, she’s going to have a little boy. If she’s big in the belly, she’s going to have a little girl. If she’s fat all over, she’s going to have three Little Debbie cakes as soon as she gets home.
• Throwing a hat on a table will bring a curse on you. One of the most common is chronic dandruff.
• If a little girl’s second toe is bigger than her big toe, it means she’ll be the boss when she gets married. This condition is the reason divorcees have to special-order shoes.
Elvis: Dead or Alive?
One of these nights it’s bound to happen: As you tuck your child into bed, she’ll look up at you with big, bright, wonder-filled eyes and ask, “Mommy, is there really an Elvis Presley?”
What are you gonna say? Tell her Elvis is dead and break her little heart?
No! Don’t be cruel. Tell her the truth: The King is alive! ALIVE!!
Every redneck, and lots of nonrednecks, are fully aware that Elvis faked his death back in 1977 so the poor harassed man could go hide out and get some peace. We’ve seen actual pictures of Elvis riding a motorcycle in Michigan just a few years ago. And on his sixty-second birthday—January 8, 1997—Elvis was spotted in a Social Security line applying for his benefits, according to what we’ve read.
So when your kid asks about Mr. Presley, just smile and assure her: Yes, my child, there is an Elvis—and one of these days you just might see him in person, gobbling a four-egg peanut butter omelet with cheese hash browns down at the Waffle House!
Bedtime Stories and Lullabies
The redneck’s second Bible ain’t a book—it’s all the great country songs.
And country music makes wonderful bedtime lullabies. Many songs are so mournful and lonesome that your young’uns will cry themselves to sleep.
A big dose of heartache works twice as fast as Sominex at bedtime, according to Professor Harland K. Sampson.
Just put a radio by your kid’s bedside, tune in a country station, and within minutes she’ll be sound asleep on her tearstained pillow.
And you don’t have to worry about dirty lyrics. You won’t find them in country songs. Our music teaches clean living and respect for women. The only “ho” you’ll hear is in “hoedown.”
Country songs also will teach your young’uns to respect their parents and to never blame you for the way they turn out. Make sure your kids hear Merle Haggard’s great tearjerker “Mama Tried,” in which he sings, “Mama tried to raise me better … now there’s only me to blame, ’cause Mama tried.”
Religion and love for animals also are big themes in country songs. The song “Feed Jake” is about a man praying that after he kicks the bucket, his best friend—his dog—will get fed.
With all this inspiring stuff already recorded, why spend time telling bedtime stories or singing lullabies to your kids? You’ve got better things to do—like making more kids.
* * *
Rednecks’ Five Favorite Songs
1. “God Bless the U.S.A.” by Lee Greenwood
2. “Stand by Your Man,” by Tammy Wynette
3. “Luckenbach, Texas,” by Waylon & Willie
4. “Take an Old Cold ’Tater and Wait,” by Little Jimmy Dickens
5. Anything by George Jones
* * *
Redneck Toys
Why spend good money buying toys at F. W. Woolworth’s and Wal-Mart when kids can entertain themselves for hours with exciting doohickeys found right in their own backyard?
We spent our childhoods floating down the river on inner tubes, swinging off ropes into the ol’ swimming hole, and climbing trees.
We had so much fun that sometimes our parents didn’t see us for days—which was fine by them because they had plenty of other kids to keep ’em busy.
One time, Glen-Bob walked in the door after a four-day absence and announced, “Mama, I’m home!” She looked up from the kitchen stove and said, “You been gone?”
Here’s a list of some of the favorite things we used to do while growing up without a penny in our pockets.
Take a gander at the list and tell your own children to give these pastimes a try. If they’re true-blue redneck kids, they’ll love these things and will never again ask you to buy ’em a Teenage Mutant Barbie.
• Show your boys and girls how to roll an old tire up and down the road by flicking it with their hand. Pick casings without any worn steel belts popping through, or else the kids will cut their hands and drip blood all over the mashed potatoes at dinnertime.
Also teach them how to curl up inside the tire and roll down hills. But warn them this can be dangerous. You know that blue Handicapped symbol showing a guy sitting on a circle? Contrary to popular belief, that circle ain’t no wheelchair—it’s a redneck kid stuck in a runaway tire.
One of the worst things your kids can do is roll down hills they’re not familiar with. Wiley Watkins’s seven-year-old-son, Jimbo, crawled inside a P215/R70 truck tire and went barreling down Dead Man’s Hill just outside of town six years ago, and we ain’t seen him since.
Jimbo must be a teenager by now, probably still rolling along.
• Tie a June bug to a thread, hand the string to your son, and let him fly the bug until it gets tangled in his sister’s hair. Guaranteed to raise a ruckus.
• Buy your boys a good sharp pocket knife so they can learn to whittle. By watching old men do this at stores, they can learn how to make wooden dolls, little cars and trucks, and long chains with separate links.
After boys get really good at whittlin’ with a knife, some irresponsible parents buy them a chain saw so they can carve tree stumps into works of art. We don’t recommend that, because artificial limbs are mighty expensive.
• Round up some old washboards and spoons, and show the children how to play tunes on them. It ain’t well-known, but this country pastime was the beginning of heavy metal music.
• Put balloons against the spokes of their bicycle wheels so they can pretend they’re riding motorcycles. Your kids and their pals can ride around town in a pack and call themselves Heck’s Angels.
• Teach your kids to juggle. Have them start with walnuts, then move up to Bud bottles (not your full ones because they might break them) and other objects.
Shorty Perkins’s smartest girl, Earlene, even learned how to juggle books—and got hired by a Los Angeles businessman.
All Their Rowdy Friends
Some smart person once said, “When you’re all by yourself, you’re in a bad neighborhood.” It’s true, so encourage your children to make lots of friends.
This is especially important if you live in a place like Chicken Neck—which is such a dull one-horse town that even the horse went off looking for a little action.
Keep your kids busy playing with their pals and you won’t have to worry about them. If they get bored, here are three games your young’uns can play with friends:
1. Snot Blowing for Distance is popular among redneck young’uns, especially if they’re all lucky enough to have colds at the same time.
Just get your kids and their friends to line up, press a finger against one nostril, and try to blow snot farther than everybody else. Each little booger gets two tries, one with
each nose hole.
2. Show the young’uns how to build their own kites. Lay out four thin sticks in a diamond shape, add two sticks in a cross shape in the middle, then use string to tie them together at the four places where they cross. Mix some flour-and-water paste to glue a layer of newspapers to the sticks.
Once the paste is dry, attach a long string and your kids have got a one-of-a-kind kite that didn’t cost them a red cent.
3. Show the kids how to stomp down on a can so hard that it clings to their shoe heel. Then do the other shoe. Let them clomp around the neighborhood to their heart’s content.
Yeah, it’s noisy, but it’s a whole lot cheaper than Rollerblades. Also, the kids won’t end up with cracked skulls from slamming into cars or trees.
If a redneck kid gets hurt at your house, his daddy might not sue you—but he sure might shoot you. So the safer the game, the better.
And if the cans get lost or stolen, you’re only losing about two cents’ worth of recyclable aluminum. Most redneck families find more than that throwed in their front yard every morning.
Sixteen Uses for an Old Commode
When your commode gets cracked and starts leaking, don’t sell it to your neighbor. Your kids can still get lots of enjoyment out of a toilet even after it’s useless for the purpose that God intended.
Redneck go-cart
Here are sixteen ways to turn your toilet into a “toy-let”:
1. Patch up the crack and fill the commode with fresh spring water. Buy some tropical fish and you’ve got a home aquarium for your youngsters.
An aquarium is educational and lots of fun. The children will spend endless hours watching the cute little fish darting hither and yon, playing with each other, and nibbling cracker crumbs sprinkled on the surface.
And when the kids get tired of watching, give each one a little fishing pole—and let them catch and filet the little suckers to their heart’s content!
2. Attach a two-foot-square mirror to the back of the tank and let your little girl use the commode as a vanity. She can straddle the lid and use the tank top as a shelf for her makeup and brushes.
3. Bolt the commode to old rocking chair rockers and let your young’uns use it as a hobbyhorse.
4. Don’t have enough chairs in front of the TV? Put a cushion on top of the commode lid and a kid can sit there!
And if you’ve got a young’un who slouches, the toilet’s hard back will straighten him right up.
5. If the commode is blue or gold, put a matching fringe around the lid so it hangs down over the bowl. Sew a blue velvet lining around the tank. This creates a little royal “throne.”
Your young’uns can use the throne to play King and Queen until they hate each other and have to get a separation.
6. Screw four old lawn mower wheels onto a two-foot-square wooden board and bolt the commode down onto the board. Your kids will have the only “commode-mobile” in the neighborhood, and they’ll be the envy of all their friends.
7. Take the lid out in the backyard and show your boys how to fling it like a discus. Encourage them to compete against other boys.
Next thing you know, your sons will be high school track stars, or else go to juvenile court for breaking neighbors’ windows.
8. Place the commode in your daughter’s bedroom and let her store her dolls inside the bowl and tank.
9. Every redneck has to learn how to jiggle the commode handle. Let your kids practice on your discarded toilet. That way they won’t damage your new one.
10–16. Round up seven old white commode tops and get your kids to paint watercolor Christmas scenes on them. (The white ceramic will look like snow.) Proudly display these works of art in your front windows every Christmas season.
A Boy’s First Truck
A pickup truck is the ultimate redneck toy. And when your son gets old enough to get a driver’s license, he’s going to start begging you for a truck.
Long before that day, warn him he’s got to pay for the vehicle himself. So he’d better get a job by the time he’s nine, either running a paper route or mowing yards, and save every penny for that truck.
When he’s got about four hundred dollars piled up, take him to look for the truck of his dreams. Don’t go to any car lot that features loud, obnoxious salesmen in its TV ads. You know, the ads that blare:
“COME ON DOWN to Al’s Used Cars and Trucks! We’ve got the best deals in town—and we’re in business strictly to HELP YOU, not to make money!
“Bad credit? No credit? Runnin’ from the law? NO PROBLEM! We can put you in a car faster than they can read you your rights!
“Our prices are cut so low, half our salesmen are on WELFARE! And the little bit o’ profit we do make, we send to Mother Teresa!
“(Salestaxandtagnotincluded. Offervoidinallforty-eightstates. PlaythisadbackwardandyoucanhearSatan.)”
The best way to buy a used truck is to drive along roads looking for trucks with For Sale signs on them. Especially be on the lookout for a sign that says Husband in Jail—Tow Off His Truck and It’s Yours.
Remember, the only things that matter are the engine—which has to be an eight-cylinder—and a straight-drive transmission.
If the engine and transmission are in good shape, you don’t care whether the fenders are battered or the upholstery is ripped. Your kid’s gonna bang up the fenders anyway, and he can tuck an old blanket over the torn seats.
Once your boy has bought a truck, show him how to pick out the best bald tires for it.
All rednecks—even the womenfolk—know how to fix flats. They don’t just run out and buy new tires when the tread gets a little worn down. And they almost never pay more than twenty dollars for a set of tires, including balancing and a spare.
These days whitewalls are nearly as cheap as black walls, so your son can spiff up his truck with fancy-lettered tires for just a few pennies more.
Usually the first things to quit on an old truck are the windshield wipers. Show your boy how to tie two long pieces of twine to the wiper on the driver’s side and run one string in each window. Then tie them together inside the cab.
By pulling the twine back and forth, he can work the wiper good enough to get home on a rainy night.
A redneck’s truck ain’t complete without mud flaps. The most prized ones have a drawing of Yosemite Sam with a big pistol in each hand and snarling, “Back off!”
Your boy can make his own set of mud flaps by cutting squares out of a neighbor’s porch carpet while they’re away bowling or vacationing at the junkyard.
* * *
Rednecks’ Five Favorite Pickup Lines
1. “I can carry forty bales o’ hay in this baby.”
2. “What’s yore sign? Mine says, ‘0 to 60 in 20 minutes.’”
3. “Look, honey, the new Bondo matches yore dress!”
4. “Sure, she’s slow, but the radio works real good.”
5. “You can keep the kids, but I get the damn truck!”
* * *
A Boy’s First DUI
Call AAA to pick up the truck. Call AA to pick up your boy. Sell the damn truck.
School Days, Rule Days
Like it or not, kids have to go to school. Most students think the purpose of school is to educate them. But the real secret purpose is to give their parents a badly needed break from child rearin’ a few hours a day.
Check your American history books and you’ll discover this whole school system scheme was cooked up by politicians who were parents. Coincidence? You be the judge.
Typical redneck sixth-grade class
Here are the rules you need when your young’uns get into school:
• Never send your son to his fourth-grade class without a good clean shave. Or your daughter either, for that matter.
Nothing looks worse on a grade school young’un than a five o’clock shadow—it kinda resembles a hog that’s been slaughtered and shaved but still has short bristles sticking out of its hide.
And if you let
your boy go to school without shaving, the teachers will poke fun at him—especially if they’re one of those fuzzy-faced, four-eyed Yankee teachers who’ve sashayed down to the South on a “mission” to educate our kids. Next thing you know, your kid will beat up the teacher and wind up in a heap of trouble.
• Before your kids take off for school in the morning, always check their shoes.
If they’re still half asleep, you can almost bet they’ll put on a black shoe and a brown one. That would be fine if the young’un was just going down to the store. But he’s got to learn that for formal occasions, such as school, he’s got to wear the same color shoes.
It’s a good idea to remind your brood every now and then that their pair of brown shoes is for school, their black pair is for church.
• When the kids get home from class, teach them to take off their shoes as soon as they hit the front porch.
Grade-schoolers under age twenty should always go barefoot when playing after school, up until the time they start coming inside with frostbite on their toes.
Going shoeless in winter and summer makes your kids grow up healthy and hardy, saves shoe leather, and keeps them from tracking dog poop into the house.
Redneck kids can’t smell. If a boy’s got his shoes on and steps in a pile of hound droppings, he won’t even notice it. He’ll come squishing right through your front door leaving stinky tracks all over the floor.
And sooner or later, some visitor to your house will notice the tracks.
• To save money, pack your kids’ school lunches. Don’t get fancy—just give each one a can of Vienna sausage, potted meat, or sardines. Throw in a few packs of crackers, which you can pick up free at restaurant buffet bars.
The Birds, the Bees, and the Backseat
