I have only lately begun to fully embrace my redneck heritage.

When we moved into the house in Dalton, having lived in Atlanta (oh, 73 to 79, or thereabouts)and then in Simpsonville (while small, it was quaint and had a nearby horsing community to lend it some charm from 79 to 82 or 83), I remember standing in the driveway, looking at the house and driveway and being sad.

Well, we drove by it yesterday. I haven't seen the house since...1997? It's just as ugly as ever. All the privet bushes are gone, and someone poured a driveway beneath the back deck. It's still brown. It's still depressing to look at and an eyesore. It has no grass, although it got a new driveway and garage doors at some point. The cow pasture is still a cow pasture. It's still real rural. I still hate it.

Living in Dalton made me into a redneck, and lowered my I.Q. by at least twenty points the second a drop of tapwater passed my lips. Something about all those carpet fibers hitting the town's water supply on a daily basis collectively suppressed the town's ability to evolve beyond a fifties style mentality. I. So. Hated. It.

I learned how to hack up phleghm and spit it really far at the bus stop with the other red neck boys (self defense for ned girls with glasses). God help me, I learned to suffer silently through farts on the bus. I never fit in with these people, being someone who read science fiction (that was satan's tool, and not fit reading for young ladies). I also did not wear makeup, or dresses (on a regular basis), or (and this will shock those of you who know me now) a regular believer in grooming. I didn't understand that those things were important if you wanted to be accepted by other girls, I think. I was a regular PigPen, at times, because I could not be bothered to care what these people thought. If they were not going to like me *sniff*, I certainly would not like them.

That is always such a successful strategy for making friends.

My own idiocy blinded me to the real natural beauty of the area. Yesterday's miniature tour (I took a wrong turn on the way back from the fair, which I'll talk about at a later day) reminded me how pretty it was. There are some beautiful places up there, although I cannot live in such an isolated area.

I always thought I was better than everyone I knew there because I was born in Atlanta and no one in my family worked in a mill. I certainly made myself unhappy and I felt constantly isolated. Perhaps those people I looked down upon had all the advantages I denied myself - they had a sense of community and belonging.

I have all these dreams and aspirations, but when you come down to it, and I anything more than a jumped up redneck?