I'm your huckleberry

Yo, you over there in the keffiyeh asking about Zionists on this bus. I'm actually a hillbilly from Appalachia, but for the moment, I self-identify as a Jew. Come on over and let's have a chat.

This is a rant. R-rated: language, depictions of potential violence, graphic insults that may prove discomforting only to “sensitive” people who don’t read Howlin’ anyway. But NSFW if you are using the transcript reader. Thanks for allowing me to vent my spleen.

Yo, you keffiyeh-wearing, anti-Semitic protesters holding hostages in college buildings, defacing monuments and private homes, and threatening people on public buses. Eighty-five years ago, your philosophical forebears got away with facilitating genocide because not enough people saw through their bullshit until it was too late. Unfortunately for you, that was then, and this is now. In the here and now, you mistakenly put way too much stock in how the media and academia think about and handle you with kid gloves, and not enough in what ordinary Americans think about and would handle you if you pulled your shit outside of safe progressive enclaves.

I triple-dog dare you to test this thesis. I'm your huckleberry, and I'm nowhere near the front of the line. Please, please, step onto the bus I'm riding and ask if there are any Zionists onboard. I'll convert to Judaism on the spot. I’ve had about as much as I’m going to take from you clueless, morally-bereft, historically-challenged dipshits. It’s time for a reality check.

A little more."In the 1800s, the phrase “I’m your huckleberry” was used to mean “I’m the one you want,” or “I’m the right one for the job,” or “I’m the right match.” Essentially, it meant that one was up to the task at hand."

What It Doesn’t Mean

Despite persistent online rumors and myths, the phrase doesn’t have anything to do with huckle bearers, pallbearers or carrying someone’s casket. It sounds cool and is slightly more interesting than the term’s actual meaning, but there isn’t any real evidence to back it up.

And if you use that meaning in the context of the above examples, it makes even less sense. Do you want the best groceries in town? We’ll be your pallbearers!

Val Kilmer even addressed the rumor in his book, I’m Your Huckleberry: A Memoir.

“By the way, despite some fans’ contention that in the 1800s the handles of caskets were called huckles and thus word huckle bearer was a term for pall bearer, I do not say, ‘I’m your huckle bearer.’ I say, ‘I’m your huckleberry,’ connotating, ‘I’m your man. You’ve met your match.'”

The screenplay’s text says huckleberry, Kilmer named his book after the line, and countless newspaper articles use the phrase in the same context. So we can all be the huckle bearers of this rumor and put it in the ground for good.

One of many old newspaper examples, this one from 1873, look at the middle ad for flour.

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