I have been a Daily Kos member for a very long time. What does that say about me? I live in a, now, semi-rural community, and have lived here for 41 years. We are still called “exurban”, but the exurbs are disappearing, something that I have fought against for years.
I actually like, and have liked, living rural for all of the decades that I have lived here, since 1980, if you were curious.
Despite that, for most all of my life, I have been a liberal, living in a world where people are extremely more conservative than I am. I was born into a family where my mother and father were Catholic, and having lots of children was encouraged. Unfortunately for me, my mother was a schizophrenic, and all six us of were taken away and placed accordingly.
All of that is an aside, considering where I live now; how I think about life now; how I consider politics now. I don’t do fancy pictures, I don’t look for memes, I don’t even consider forums such as Twitter, Instagram, and who else knows what the heck is out there. I am getting old, at nearly 61 years of age, and I don’t want to know or join or do any of that “stuff”, but I never stop paying attention, including to this forum, where I have been a member for a truly long time.
I have had some really old non-essential fights with members here, especially during times where I fought my own personal battles, but one thing I have always known is that this is a place where I want to read the diaries of others, and I have never stopped reading.
In that thought, I offer this diary.
I have lived in my community since October 31, 1980. It was a really low population area, where there were less than 1000 families living in an area over 56k acres, some now protected (which I fully supported and fought for!).
I have a neighbor who has lived here for that same nearly identical period of time. His wife, and my good friend, died a few years ago of lung cancer. My family grieved along side of his.
My family weren’t “country people”, except that after I moved here, and had my two children, we became “country people”. I know most will not understand what that means, but essentially we became “rednecks”.
We adopted a lot of things that most will not understand, but essentially the country way of life. All of us, and I mean all of us, including my children and now grans, listen to c/w, and I still do, and love it. I ignore the hunting, I don’t like it, but have grown to understand the need to cull the herd, so to speak, and maybe you won’t, but hunting actually helps make sure some wildlife will not get out of control, if there weren’t hunters. Despite that, I banned any hunting for my same neighbors way back in 1981 on my own property.
I know some of you won’t get it, or understand things such as my relationship with these same neighbors, but they knew and know that I have been a liberal all of these years. I call them when needed, and they call me when needed, and we don’t “hate” one another.
In 2008, when I voted for Obama for the 1st time, my neighbor asked me if I voted for that “black guy”, and you know I told him yes! He said he knew it, and that was that.
This year, real estate in Florida has taken on a new, and uncontrolled level of pricing and affordability. I have been receiving text messages for months, from random numbers, all real estate people asking me about selling my home. I always send a message back, essentially telling them to go to hell!
Unfortunately, my neighbor of all of these years, who has been receiving the same messages, said yes. They will be gone, after 41 years, at the end of this month.
Today, I went over for coffee, and, as usual, we began discussing “things”, from his perspective and from my own. As we have, for all of these years, we agreed on some things and on others, disagreed, but one thing we never did was “hate” each other. That would defy our “relationship”, still trusted, and still respected all of these years.
There was more in that conversation, but for now, I simply am tired, but still friends with these same neighbors and the family, after all of these years. Am I a “redneck”? Perhaps, and perhaps not…
Thanks for reading so far, if you have, but I had to explain the relationship first, and if you are still interested, I will post more tomorrow...