Twin sons of different mothers

A cop pulls a redneck in a pickup truck over. The cop says to him, "You have an I.D.?" The redneck says, "Bout what?"

And so it goes here in the Sunshine State, the only place in the world where someone can ride your bumper, high beams on, and you're in the right lane! The other day a woman came into a convenience store saying her car was on fire. Several of us customers ran outside. The car's master cylinder had caught fire, and was literally in flames. A man - clearly in his 60's - with a pony tail and a beard that had not been trimmed in 4 years, turned away from the burning engine and said, "Figgers. 'Sa Ford". I picked up two handfuls of sand and threw the contents on the master cylinder, putting out the flames. The redneck dude walked back into the convenience store to continue his scintillating conversation about squirrel huntin' with the clerk.

I have yet to come across a group or association that bugs the hell outta me as much as rednecks do. When I retired from the Army and decided to come to Florida, I envisioned nice beaches, decent weather, and a varied population. I had no idea the illiterate and stagnant were here as well. Recently, a local Baptist church --- let me say that again --- a local Baptist church, had a night gathering and dinner where they celebrated the Confederacy.

Hellooooooooo??? The South lost, remember? I'm told that a person who was at the revival dinner - or whatever you want to call it - said, "No. We didn't lose." WE? As far as I can tell, there are no people living today who can use the term WE while discussing the Civil War. Nonetheless, YES they did lose.

I'm from New England, and up there we are taught in the schools that the Civil War was the darkest period in our country's history, a time of sadness and shame. Apparently not so much in some circles down here. In 1970 in Boston, the city tried to integrate the schools, in effect moving kids from the suburbs into inner-city schools, and vice versa. There was tremendous upheaval over busing a kid 25 miles into downtown Boston, when they had a school 1/3 of a mile from their house. The inner city parents had the same problem with busing their children 25 miles outside the city into the 'burbs. I once had a friend from Georgia tell me that incident was the primary example of how racist the northeast really is. I remember saying to him, "No shit? You guys fly the confederate flag, burn crosses on lawns, have assigned seating on public buses, "whites only" restaurants, clubs, drinking fountains and the like, but Bostonians are racist because they wouldn't allow their whole lives and schedules to be totally thrown out of whack by busing? Are you serious?"

He said he was. I agreed. He was seriously misguided. Probably still is. But I liked him nonetheless.

Anyways, what was I talking about? Oh yeah. A Christian congregation that was celebrating - in the year of our Lord 2008 - the virtues of slavery, social dominance, and human suffering. Hallelujah!! Pass the whips and chains. If they only knew how they keep the likes of Jeremiah Wright, Al Sharpton, and others of that ilk in focus and current. If the rednecks would stop being rednecks, it would deny the rebellious on the other side fodder for their preachings.

Which brings up an interesting point. Has anyone else noticed the absolute identical traits contained in both the cowboy-wanna-be-rednecks and the hate-speech-spewing Jeremiah Wrights of this world? Uh huh. They're exactly the same, aren't they? But they will each swear on a stack of Bibles that they are different from each other.

But they're not. Not at all, as a matter of fact.