Posted on 09/02/2007 6:32:33 PM PDT by chasio649
My memories of the south are from Selma, Alabama from 66-67. I was a military brat at Craig AFB, and no one connected with the federal government was very popular. After we were refused service at the Selma Del, we stayed on the base, ordered clothes from JC Penny and traveled to Florida for vacations.
I remember tar paper shacks, and driving down dirt roads where folks came out of what I assumed were barns or stables to stare at us. There was breath-taking poverty, but there was also good...walking with friends to the pool during the summer (the 2 TV stations we sometimes got didn’t show much) or running thru the woods to the Boy Scout camp to ‘borrow’ their canoe and paddle around the lake.
Conservatism is about conserving the good while having the discernment to know and reject the bad.
The ‘war on poverty’ helped get rid of tar paper shacks, but we’ve also lost families and a work ethic. We have computers and TV and can see what is happening from afar, but don’t know our neighbors’ names.
I have mixed feelings about the old south...
Heck, the whole country’s different. It ain’t just the South.
That's news to me. The song refers to hard work (choppin' cotton, balin' hay and plowing) and lots of food (black-eyed peas, biscuits, apple pie--"I've been cookin' all morning and you haven't touched a single bite") but never to "bleak rural poverty."
Thanks Kalee!
Many of those tar paper shacks have been replaced by projects...even in small towns....drive through Hayneville, AL some time.....it’s sad...many escaped the grinding poverty by moving to the city and taking decent paying jobs(including my parents)....The one thing i hate to hear stories about is how unbelievably good the fishing was in the Gulf back in the 40’s and 50’s....heck it was still good when i was a kid in the 60’s and 70’s ;)
lower 40,,,good bottom land
My son graduated from H-S just two years ago. Please add me to the ping list.
I agree. Ode to Billie Joe never evoked images of poverty to me, either. Maybe it’s part of today’s tendency to look down on work.
“After being married to Bobbie Gentry
Jim Stafford said he knew why Billy Joe
jumped off that bridge.”
.
I remember that!
He cracked me up saying that!
Thanks for the memory, and the ping.
I love the south...warts and all.
We spread that rumor to keep the Damnyankees out...
I can;t believe everybody missed this little gem.
It hasn’t changed. Simple-minded? In old fashioned terms, to mean something that’s just done, and not thought about too much, like one’s duty, absolutely yes.
It’s also more ‘rock’ than country these days too! Too bad, there are a few that have a twangy-country sound, but much has been co-opted by pop and non country Hollywood.
They need to get back to their blue-grass roots, IMO.
Thanks for the ping. Ol’ Fred can sometimes get it right.
Thank you Duke, for your ping. Billhilly knows exactly what you are talking about, and so do I.
Ol’ Fred can sometimes get it right.
Yes he can...but he can get whacked out at times too...i can’t quite pin him down....he’s a very smart guy but i think he has some issues...i guess we all do ;)
Simple minded means devoid of subtlety, unsophisticated; foolish.
Country music (the old original CM) was an offshoot of good Bluegrass, my favorite music.
If you go to a small bluegrass festival up in the mountains of east Tennessee, or listen to the few radio stations that play this up here, you’ll realize that traditional country and bluegrass are the same, there just might be an extra banjo or fiddle in it!!!
Yes, it does, but that is the modern interpetation. Mine also applies, and that is how, IMHO, the author meant it. Reed is a big supporter of the military and the partiots who make up the military.
"Simple-minded" has always been an insult in my world.
The definition I gave above came from the dictionary. And I didn't leave anything out.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.