Some things never change. At the age of 12 I moved to Alabama from Mississippi. I was told what a redneck was my first day at St. Elmo Middle School (Redneck country). I didn't get it for quiet a while! That was 1977 and my first memories of rednecks. They have been around as long as I remember and are still around to this day! I am not saying I am any better than they are. I am just saying we are all different. I was born in the deep south - Mississippi and lived there until age 12 and moved to Alabama.
At the age of 37 I married Eric and moved to Ohio. I thought there would be no Rednecks - WRONG! There were a few! Indiana I am not sure - probably were some. Kentucky - not really rednecks - just hillbillies!
Later today Savannah watched a movie of Spiderman that was Black and white. She thought the movie was broke. I started explaining to her that TV shows were black and white when I was a little girl. I told her we did not have TV remotes and that cartoons only came on Saturday mornings. Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound came on early Sunday morning before we left for Sunday School. I told her we only had 3 TV channels. Maybe 4 channels on a good day.
I can't wait to tell her more as she gets older! Things like:
I did not have cable TV till I was 16. Eric was an adult before he had cable or a color TV. My Mom never had a TV. We had to roll our own car windows down. I never had a car seat and did not wear a seat belt until I was driving my own car at the age of 15. Every place I bought gas for my car was a full service gas station. I did not pump my own gas until about the age of 20. There was no air conditioner in school (public or private school). Everybody we knew went to church. Every family did not own two cars. Most all of my friends had to share a bedroom with a sibling and they only had one bathroom in their home. We happen to have two after I was 12 years old. We did not have cordless phones. We had no computers in our home until I was about my mid 20's. We did not have saran wrap or paper plates that I ever remember until I was older. I did not grow up with McDonald's or drive thru restaurants until my teens. We did not have a microwave oven till I was a teenager. I owned a stereo and we played 8 track tapes and LP records. When I was older we had cassette tapes! We never owned an electric pencil sharpener. There were no flat irons for our hair. We would use a real clothes iron! We wrote checks to pay for things and used cash most of the time. There were no ATM cards. We did not grow up with our own playrooms. Our bedroom served both purposes. White gold and silver jewelry was not popular, Gold was what everyone wore! We wore add a bead necklaces, Izod shirts, belts, socks and hairbows. We ironed a crease in our bluejeans and bought our Levi's from the Army Navy surplus store. I started school in a small town in Mississippi. I was not admitted into public school in 1969. I went to a private school for 3 years. Once in public school, Integration meant all white kids had a black teacher and all black kids had a white teacher. At the movie theatres white kids went to the downstairs theatre while the black families had to go upstairs. One group went to one side of the snack bar and the others to the other side. We grew up thinking this was normal - and it was not normal, legal or fair. I grew up very naive and shy. When moving to the big city of Mobile, Al at the age of 12, you could drive out of my new, upper middle class neighborhood for 5 minutes and see a KKK cross burning on any Friday or Saturday night. Thank goodness I had parents who taught us to love everyone equal and not have hate in our hearts.
I could keep going. Thank goodness so many things have changed for good in my lifetime. I think I should start writing these things down! As fast as things change in this world, many people and things will stay the same. There will always be rednecks!
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