08-10-2019, 11:03 PM
deckeda wrote:
Definitely not FROM here, but living here for the past few years due to circumstances. Friends and family who today look at me bug-eyed asking how I like it here, and I answer truthfully “it has its charms.”
Throughout the year we’ll hear rifle or shotgun out in the surrounding woods. It’s not a murder town. One of the local newspapers has the headline, Man in Underwear Arrested for DUI. See, a regular DUI would be boring. But this ‘ol boy was toolin’ around in his skivvies, and the paper just couldn’t resist adding to the front page headline.
My step father in law came by the other day to practice with his newly-acquired (I forgot the name!) .22 bolt-action rifle he picked up used, at a flea market. He suffers groundhogs intown and the city and neighbors won’t raise a stink about the occasional .22 being popped. The “city” is 4-5 miles away at best.
Parked in the gravel drive, resting the barrel on the door of his F350 he sent a few into a large tree opposite the street. Together we would walk over and see how he did and adjust the sights, in between a few shots of tequila. “These days I only drink agave ...” he says, when he’s out of good beer. I did stop him from pulling the trigger once, as a neighbor was driving by that he failed to notice.
With firing a gun across the street (it’s a hillside on the other side) and sipping a little tequila late morning, it sounds rather depraved and horrible. But the other day Lemon I think it was you who talked about not judging people automatically and getting better immersed in whatever culture surrounded them as a way of finding common ground You could say I’ve done a bit of that, and this city boy has learned a few things about the South and more recently about rural living and being surrounded by poverty. There are real advantages to it ... not many I value long term for myself perhaps, but enough to respect.
This is like the start of a good book, I wanted you to keep telling the story.