There, I'm now out of whatever closet hillbillies hide in...
The truth is that I've never been comfortable trying to hide the fact that I'm a hillbilly. There are habits I have, attractions I sense, things I feel which are difficult to hide. Sometimes I slip up and do things at work which give me away. Last month I forgot where I was and pulled my buck knife out at work to pick my teeth with. Our secretary got kinda squeamish and asked if I was okay. I realized what I was doing and put the knife away.
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My attraction to deer meat, good sour mash, blackberry wine, and corn fields, and the sense of pride I feel in University of Tennessee football clearly mark me to many people as a hillbilly.
The myths about hillbillies are usually not true. I have all the genes I'm supposed to. I do actually work for a living and don't receive any form of government aid at the moment. I've never done anything immoral with my sister (unless you count the time I talked her into sticking her finger in the car's cigarette lighter while Mom was in the grocery store - but, hey, I was only about 10 or 11 at the time). I is in fact edjukated to sum extent - I mean, I can read an' all.
My biggest fear, I guess, is that if people knew for certain that I was a hillbilly, I'd lose my friends - and maybe my job. I don't think it's legal for them to fire you simply for being a hillbilly, but they'd probably start looking for some other reason to let me go.
But I can't stand living with the secret anymore. So this morning I'm going to put on my cowboy boots, get in my pick-up truck, put my Kentucky Headhunters tape in the cassette player, and drive to work with the volume up loud. I'm going to park where everyone can see the old fencing wire in my truck bed and tell for certain that I hauled a load of road apples from the stable to my garden this week. And I'm going to announce to everyone at work that it's true, that I really am a hillbilly.
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