Queen of the Rednecks, Part Dos

My family often amazes me by reaching new heights of redneck but honestly they can't help it. It's the environment... The town I currently live in has been my family's base for over 130 years. The muddy waters of this boondock town runs in our veins.

The most noteworthy thing that has happened here was the creation of "Big Tex" who began as our big Santa Claus. The State Fair bought him and turned him into a giant cowboy that waves and says "Howdy" at the state fair. My grandaddy was a part of the project.

We have two restaurants, Double D's or D&D, which stands for Dave Dave and Dooey's Steakhouse and the Grub-n-Gossip. Dominoe's sets up a pizza stand once a week and there is a BBQ stand called Jam-Acres (which to me sounds like Jamaicaers and an attempt to pay homage to the owners roots).

Our town has a Food Rite and a Dollar General. There is a tire shop that actually kept a sign up on the side of the road, "We fix flates", for several years. The Movie Shop is small and the man who bought it from my uncle in the 80's is still running it. His front counter sports pictures of dead celebrities and gangsters, like actual crime scene photos, of the 20th century. He is as good natured as they come- even though he likes graphic pictures of murder victims.

Once a year we have, "The Cotton Harvesting Festival", where we have skeet shooting competitions, chili cook-off, live music, dunking booths, retail booths, roasted ears of corn, and a street dance when the sun goes down. This past year it was held by the glowing embers of the First Baptist Church that blew up early that morning.

The town is small, the streets are bricked, the railroad tracks are in the middle of town, everyone closes shop to attend Friday night football games, and there is always a place to drop a line and catch some fish. Bigger isn't always better. It's the smaller things in life that make life worth while.