[video http://www.diecast-dude.com/gac/moby_natural_blues.flv nolink]
I’ve mentioned before how I’m something of a cultural hybrid, having been raised in the late ’60s and throughout the ’70s in the San Francisco Bay Area by parents whose roots were solidly placed in central Indiana soil. This provided the experience of simultaneously finding such movements in society as the Haight-Ashbury district and all the other weirdness that permeated the area during those tumultuous days perfectly normal, since I had nothing else to compare them against, yet underneath having a firm grasp on traditional rural American values. Which of these have served me better over the decades is a matter of debate, but I am glad for both of them.
That duly noted, as time has trudged on I’ve found myself more in tune with the country side of things than the city. Not that I’m averse to concrete and steel; I thoroughly enjoy the disheveled energy you can literally feel when walking around San Francisco. However, given my druthers I’d rather be sitting on a porch swing in a small Indiana town on a pleasant evening (i.e. when it’s not either snowing or blistering hot with suffocating humidity along for the ride), watching the fireflies dance.
It’s interesting the reactions I get whenever I mention my dual heritage. Country folk wonder if the Bay Area in general and San Francisco in particular are as bizarre as they’ve been told — for the most part, no, although to be honest I’m so used to it I wouldn’t notice if by everyone else’s measuring stick it was strange — while city dwellers ask how I could possibly enjoy visiting the hicks out in the sticks. Um, because it’s nice not having to be in street survival mode with every step I take?
This all is reflected, methinks, in my assorted political views. Despite having been born, raised and spending almost all of my life as a denizen of the home base for such leftist loopies as Nancy Pelosi and the People’s Republic of Beserkley I am a stalwart conservative. However, even with my unimpeachable resume as a city kid I have zero hesitation to chew out other conservatives who demonstrate disdain for the country side of things; the notion that common sense and life experience far outweighs any purely academic approach to political and/or social thought.
I’m sadly amused by the self-proclaimed intelligentsia of conservatism who routinely bash and are bewildered by the immense popularity of a Sarah Palin, a Mike Huckabee or a Glenn Beck. The fact is their inability to grasp the reason why Palin, Huckabee, Beck and others like them have such an unshakable place in not only the minds but also hearts of their fans reveals how high-mindedness often leads to short-sightedness. They can’t for the life of them figure out the appeal of what to them are commoners. Why? Frankly, they’re so busy looking down on them they never for a moment stop to consider maybe there’s nothing common at all about people who appreciate the fundamentals, live simply, speak plainly and have no patience for cocktail chatter.
Certainly intelligence and intellectual pursuit are worthy goals, ones we all should embrace. Yet even as we chase after these things, we should never lose sight of how much pure wisdom there is in the country side of things. They don’t have the refined manner and talk of the city. But when you look at the city, is that such a bad thing?
[video http://www.diecast-dude.com/gac/garth_brooks_friends_in_low_places.flv nolink]
