Rednecks: The Other White Meat

Subject: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: KarlMarx
Date: 08 Dec 02 - 02:14 PM

Last Friday night, on the Humble Farmer Show, which airs on MPBN from 7:00PM to 8:00PM (Robert Skoglund - aka The Humble Farmer - plays what he calls "old-fashioned music" - aka Jazz and Blues), an e-mail was read on the air, where the sender referred to Maine as "Mississippi with snow." Humble didn't know what that meant. Having been born and reared (careful of that term!) in Maine, I did know what it meant. Does anyone else have any insights into this cultural designation for Maine, or their own home state . . . ?

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: Jeri
Date: 08 Dec 02 - 03:13 PM

I dunno - there are no Moose in Mississippi. (song title) I grew up in upstate NY. While there were Mississippi-like enclaves, most of the state was more like Connecticut. I think the whole state of Maine was labeled Miss-like because it's mostly rural.

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: Willie-O
Date: 08 Dec 02 - 03:59 PM

Maine is the state when you're entering from Canada, the border guy says "Ayup. Watch out for moose."

Gojira, I don't think the writer meant it in a good way. And I don't think he knew shit about Maine or Mississippi, or has lived in either place.

Mere speculation on my part...my specialty, really!

W-O

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 08 Dec 02 - 03:59 PM

Many years ago, I was doing some survey work across the border in Canada. Some of the work took me into Maine. There I found out about rural children picking potatoes for a pittance, and excused from school to do it. Many of them were French-speaking.
Later in Texas, I saw a group of 6-7 young people (teens, just) selling cards and stationary from door to door in my neighborhood. They were shepherded by a dour middle-aged couple. That night I met two who had somehow sneaked out of the trailer in which they bedded down, and were in town begging. Their French accents, in a Texas town, got them attention. They had been "hired" by the couple in upstate Maine to do the door-to-door, and were in the third month of their odyssey across the States.
I think most states have Mississippi-like aspects in some corner or another.

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: mg
Date: 08 Dec 02 - 05:01 PM

I was a school counselor in rural Maine for a brief period, up in Aroostook County. This was in the mid-80s or so. The school schedule was arranged so that the children could go out and harvest the potatoes. I was out there myself. I thought it was great they had the opportunity. They seemed to certainly enjoy it more than school...they essentially ran the whole harvest..the little ones out with their mothers picking, the teens driving the trucks etc. I did worry about safety issues but I didn't hear of any injuries. The older ones paid for college partially this way; the younger ones bought their own clothes etc. I think it would be wonderful if every student in America had the opportunity, proportional to their desire and stamina etc., to help with some harvest a couple of hours every day,to earn money for themselves or their families...we evolved to do things like pick potatoes..not to sit down all day and hear someone talk at us...so I don't see it as a bad thing at all, providing there is adequate rest, sanitation, supervision etc. and that they aren't forced into it.

Isn't Rednecks sort of an insulting word? And aren't there just fine and wonderful people in Mississippi? I know there were in Alabama.

mg

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: KarlMarx
Date: 08 Dec 02 - 05:16 PM

The reading of the e-mail, in which Maine was described as "Mississippi with snow," was an example of synchronicity. That Friday night, I was returning from South Portland, Maine, where I had visited Borders Books and Music (a place that my dear, dear friend Curmudgeon calls the literary equivalent to Wal-Mart), and I was approaching the part of town (town's name withheld for my own safety) that was made famous by my Uncle George's barn. The e-mail was being read just as I passed the site where the barn had once stood. Now why is this important?
   You see, my Uncle George was the archetypal packrat, and he could be found at the town dump every Saturday, picking over the goodies, and returning home with his treasures, to only toss them in his yard. But the main tourist attraction to his redneck estate was - THE BARN. A beautiful, New England-esque barn with peeling paint, and a sagging roof. This structure was the repository of decades of newspapers: bundled, unbundled, stacked, un-stacked, from wall-to-wall, floor to ceiling. In fact, there were so many newspapers, that they caused the walls to bulge, which was offset only by the fact that they kept the sagging roof from collapsing all together.
   Well, you can imagine that this architectural wonder was a recipe for disaster, what with the laws of thermodynamics in play. Yes, one very hot, summer's day, the internal heat in this rustic vault of my home town's journalistic history reached the point of spontaneous combustion and KA-BOOM!
   The explosion was so loud that you could hear the report two miles away. The release of energy threw a mushroom cloud of smoke and debris two hundred feet into the air. The volunteer fire department ("Oh, boy! Something to do!") rushed to ground zero, and dowsed the site with water. When the smoke cleared, an amazing sight was beheld by all: the explosion had completely blown the walls and roof off, leaving a smoldering cube of wet, blackened newspapers in the shape of a phantom barn.
   Yes, a timely reminder of the wonders of rural and semi-rural living, shared by Yankee and Southerner alike . . .

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: Jeri
Date: 08 Dec 02 - 05:43 PM

It sounds more like the sort of thing that happens in Lake Woebegone, Gojira. If that doesn't deserve a song, I don't know what does!

I think it's fascinating that Q and Mary both talk of the kids harvesting potatoes but have vastly different experientes and/or interpretations. The harvests were in two separate places and may have been quite different. Q's sounds like kids were forced to work for the money and Mary's tale sounds like it was a community event.

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: Willie-O
Date: 08 Dec 02 - 05:56 PM

Jeri, there ain't necessarily a difference!

I think they had the potato-harvest time-off from school in New Brunswick until recently.

Yup, there are Quebecois who cross the border and work in Maine, particularly in the timber industry. They speak French--so? Also present are those of other nationalities--there was a terrible accident a few weeks ago involving a vanload of migrant labourers from a southern country.

I still maintain this does not make Maine into Mississippi, snow or no snow. The North ain't the South, East is not West, Canada is not the U.S., and a duck is not a DC9 just because they both have wings and fly.   

Willie-O
onetime potato harvester.

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: KarlMarx
Date: 08 Dec 02 - 06:04 PM

Hey, Jeri! I travelled to Aroostook County once, to give a lecture at UM Presque Isle, and it's very, very poor up there. The Aroostook residents look askance at people from outside "The County," even if they have Maine license plates. I stopped to fill-up in Houlton, to make the final 50 mile leg up Route One to Presque Isle, and the gas station attendant noticed that I had a beach permit sticker on my wind shield, indicating my place of residence. He said: "I see that you're from the Gold Coast." I asked him what that meant, and he told me that the people up there referred to York and Cumberland Counties - the two southern-most in Maine - as the Gold Coast, because of their wealth (and I'm sure, because King George the First has a summer home in Kennebunkport). I said to him, "Look at the freakin' car that I'm driving. A pee-yellow AMC station wagon with a dent in the fender and a radio that only plays AM stations. Does that look like I'm one of the Gold Coast aristocracy?"   But I had to admit that I knew what he meant . . .

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: curmudgeon
Date: 08 Dec 02 - 06:29 PM

Rural poverty exists everywhere, Mississippi, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, maybe even Texas. It is largely ignored because country people don't contribute to politicians and are not yet a voting bloc.

Yet it was refreshing to note the outcome in the LA senatorial election. The more grassrooted woman won.

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: KarlMarx
Date: 08 Dec 02 - 07:12 PM

Hey, Curmudgeon! I think that the equating to "ruralness" in Maine and Mississippi was more likely in reference to a mind-set. When Mary above asked if that was an insulting word - "redneck" - I can answer that yes, it can be. My father was literally a "redneck" - he worked out-of-doors most of his life, and he had the tanned arms, face and neck - but with the rest of his body fish-belly white (this type of laborer is the roots of the term "redneck"). Yet he was the most tolerant man that you'd ever want to meet. On the other hand, though, my uncles and aunts, who are not similarly tanned, are the most intolerant, bigoted people that you'd never want to meet. They refer to themselves as "white trash," and they're proud of it. Their words and terms. Rural Maine is God's country, and God is a white, male, heterosexual, pentecostal, right-wing Republican. Alleluia and screw the tourists!
   Don't get me wrong: I love rural living. I lived in Marblehead for awhile, and it was a ghastly experience for me - much too much crowding and traffic. But, you know, it was a breath of fresh air, culturally speaking, on the North Shore of Massachusetts. I could mention that I liked Jessie Jackson, without worrying if I was gonna find a cross burning on my front lawn the next day. And lest you think I am indulging in hyberbole, it wasn't so long ago that a crowd of townies beat up my Maine home town's black police officer . . .

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: leprechaun
Date: 08 Dec 02 - 07:46 PM

They call the city where I come from "The People's Republic of Eugene."

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: GUEST,Al
Date: 08 Dec 02 - 08:10 PM

Eh bien!

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: khandu
Date: 08 Dec 02 - 08:28 PM

I don't see "redneck" as an offensive word. I think the offense lies in the attitude of the one who would use it in a demeaning manner.

Here in Mississippi we have an abundance of rude, stupid jerks. But we also have a plethora of warm, caring folk. We are not the stereotypical ignorant "bubbas" as we are often portrayed.

As to the reference of Maine/Mississippi, I have no idea.

khandu

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: mg
Date: 08 Dec 02 - 08:59 PM

I'm confused. I lived in Aroostook county. This was almost 20 years ago and times might have changed drastically. We were closer...like really really close....to New Brunswick. But I presumed, although I could be wrong, that the French-speaking people were not French Canadians but Franco-Americans (they taught me to say that upthere). Aroostook County splits into (or did) English and French-speaking portions probably up around Presque Isle..we were at the very English part of it..I was south of Houlton a bit...but it gets more and more French as you go north. One of the universities in the Un. of Maine system..Ft. Kent...I think is mainly French speaking. I had heard, and I don't know if this is true, that Maine was an officially bilingual state..as was I think New Hampshire...but I can't confirm this. I know schools are taught ..or were...in French in the northern part of the state. It was really neat there..I only worked there for a year as a counselor and then I worked in Lewiston on a research project with UMO..again with some bilingual issues. I had planned to stay there as I had great ties to Newfoundland but had to return to Washington because of my parents' health etc.

Also, I don't recall it being that excessively poor. Perhaps in cash, but the kids dressed nicely, they lived in decent houses and had all the potatoes and blueberries they could eat....There used to be immense prosperity there. A lot of them hunted..they were very enterprising people. I think it was less a cash-based society than we are used to but they seemed pretty much OK to me, although of course I knew of some terrible situations...very hard-working people there...one boy said he knew he could go anywhere and get a job because he was from Maine..and people knew how hard they worked in Maine and were anxious to hire them...a lady wrote an editorial in the paper and said, well we might be poor but we always wear nice shoes (referring to the Bass shoes etc. they at least used to make there.)

I couldn't figure out where the German names came from there. German POWs in WWII were brought there to help with the potato harvest and I guess many stayed.

Well, enough..it was a great place. I presume Mississippi is great. I could go on and on about Alabama, which is a mysterious, magical place. mg

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Dec 02 - 09:29 PM

Well, I'll have to fess up here to have used the term "redneck" in mnay of my posts but it has never been aimed at rural folks with home town beliefs but the Tom Delays, Dick Armeys and Tom Richs within the current administration. Oh heck, go ahead and throw Condi Rice in there, too.

Yeah, I use it to mean folks who have narrow views, no faith in the goodness of man and a lack of education that fosters these two.

And this from a Wes Ginny hillbilly...

Bobert

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: pattyClink
Date: 08 Dec 02 - 09:42 PM

My recollection is demographers see some similarity in the 2 states maine-ly because they are quite sparsely populated. Lots of timber, lots of farmland, not a lot of cities, thin population density, not a lot of wealth. Maybe in marketing and election circles it is extremely pertinent that there is still a rural population making the decisions. So, does that make Wyoming the Maine of the West? No wait, they're mostly white up there, they must be the Lily of the West!

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: mg
Date: 08 Dec 02 - 09:49 PM

I'll say something else...I took a job in a school that was considered so bad it was shut down and run by the state. It was better than any school I had seen or worked at in Washington. Figure that one out..

mg

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: catspaw49
Date: 08 Dec 02 - 11:20 PM

I have a feeling that it was more of a cutesy qnd quick throw-off line with an underlying bigotry that exists everywhere. No one on this site makes more jokes about Mississippi than I do and I do only because khandu knows the real essence of what and how I feel. Redneck is a term that, like many others, is charged only by the way it is used. Khandu and I could do an entire stand-up routine on the whole thing and no one would be offended. I try to defuse the power of words by making them so ridiculous that you can only laugh at them but in the final analysis, certain words trigger emotional responses and when used as they were noted here.......No contsext makes it hard to tell what anyone meant.

I'd like to think of it in the best possible light and just enjoy the laugh that both are rural states as patty clink noted. I can't see a lot of similarity outside of that.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 09 Dec 02 - 12:00 AM

Rednecks have gone high tech, so watch out for Redneck power!
Take a gander at Redneck-puters

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: KarlMarx
Date: 09 Dec 02 - 08:04 AM

Well said, Catspaw! Maybe we should collaborate on a Maine-to-Mississippi joke fest, 'cause no one tells more jokes about Maine than I do (just ask Brother Curmudgeon: he'll testify!) What irritates me about Maine, other than the narrow-minded, bigoted boobs (how about that as a replacement term for redneck?) are the liberal Mainers who think that all the intolerance is south of the Kittery Trading Post. Lest we forget, Maine has repeatedly defeated state-wide referenda to extend equal rights to gay and lesbian people, for example. And the fact of the matter is, while the more urban(e) parts of the state - the Gold Coast (York and Cumberland Counties) - voted for gay rights - the more rural areas, including Aroostook County - voted against, with the campaign cry: "Vote for common sense! That's the Maine way!" The Maine way is discrimination? As Doctor Evil would say, "Right-ttt!"
   Another example of our compassion up here, is the referendum to amend Maine's human rights provisions, to extend suffrage to folks who are mentally challenged, and who are under supervised care. The referendum was defeated. The good news is, that it is obvious that the various municipalities don't really bar mentally challenged people from voting, if the results of the various human rights initiatives are any indication . . .

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: Jeri
Date: 09 Dec 02 - 09:47 AM

I'd rather someone vote who's mentally challenged and tries to learn about candidates before choosing them than some genius who always marks the party-of-their-choice block or votes for who his buddies like without doing any research at all.

Mental challenged voters couldn't be a problem - it's the compassion-challenged and the apathetic.

As for voting for common sense - common sense can save your own ass at the expense of others. Voting for what's right is a better policy, but the blinkered "we've-always-done-it-that-way" good ol'boys can't see there might be a difference.

(Gojira, are there any roadside seafood places up there called 'Ku Klux Klam'?)

Subject: RE: Rednecks: The Other White Meat
From: KarlMarx
Date: 09 Dec 02 - 10:59 AM

Hey, Jeri! I don't think I've seen any roadside seafood joints that answer to that moniker, but I haven't been up past Ellsworth lately. That said, I think we ought to start a restaurant and call it "Bushwhackers." The bar area won't serve any pretzels, though . . .