(I ran across this while cleaning out some old files -- more about that later -- and realized it had never been published. So here 'tis.)
Good old boys have an image problem.
Say good old boy and the picture that comes to mind is of an ignorant redneck with mud on his shoes and beer on his breath, an overweight hayseed whose vocabulary is smaller than his belt size, a hick in a rusty pickup truck.
The reason for this sad state of affairs is that good old boys don’t spend their time indoors writing scripts for TV shows or drawing cartoons for slick magazines.
It’s time someone set the record straight. It’s time to say something good about good old boys.
A good old boy is polite to a fault. He will take time to compliment the flowers in your front yard and inquire about the health of your mammy and pappy even before he asks to use the phone to call the ambulance because his wife has gone into labor with their third child.
A good old boy is helpful. If you have hay in the field and it’s making up to rain, he’ll show up before you call for help and he’ll stay til you’re through. In fact, if what you’re doing is more interesting than what he was doing, he’ll stay til his wife threatens to serve supper without him.
A good old boy has perspective. He knows that a hundred years from now not much of what anyone’s doing is going to be in the history book, so if it’s a nice day and the fish are biting, it’s no big deal if the fence doesn’t get painted until tomorrow. Or the next day.
A good old boy is an island of calm. When’s he sitting on the front porch in the rocking chair and he looks as if he’s asleep, he’s just meditating. Folks in town pay big money to their yoga teachers to learn to do that.
A good old boy is friendly. Notice what happens when you meet one coming down the road in his pickup truck. If he doesn’t know you, he’ll lift one finger off the steering wheel. That’s short for “Hi.” If you’re another good old boy, he’ll lift two fingers. That short for “Hi, there.”
A good old boy is not a slave to fashion. You won’t see him changing his wardrobe every year just because some dandy in Paris or New York said it’s the thing to do. He never bought a leisure suit or a Nehru jacket, and there aren’t that many different ways to tailor a pair of hog washers.
A good old boy is a smart consumer. The cartoonists may picture him as a rube dumb enough to buy the Brooklyn Bridge, but you won’t find him paying good money just to buy drinking water that some slicker has put in a fancy bottle. Heck, you can get beer for that kind of money.
A good old boy is a conservationist. If there’s something around the house that he doesn’t know what to do with, say an old water heater or air conditioner, he’s won’t just take it to the dump. No, he’ll toss it over the fence, because sooner or later he or one of his neighbors is going to need to scavenge something off of it to fix something else.
A good old boy shares. You won’t find him throwing a perfectly good aluminum beer can in the garbage can. He’ll toss it in the ditch, instead, so some less fortunate soul can salvage it for recycling.
A good old boy uses cash only if all else fails. He’d rather trade than eat, and anything he’s got is prime for barter except his kids and his hound dog. Well, the hound dog for sure.
A good old boy knows good food. He’d eat fried dirt if you put batter on it.
Being a good old boy is a state of mind. Even someone who has been to college, even a lawyer, can be one.
Of course you can’t have good old boys without good old girls, but that’s a whole other subject.
Contact the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
