My family background is kind of redneck. My own personal upbringing, to the extent that I can tell because nobody ever told me anything when I was a kid, was sort of redneck-once-removed. I myself was a bookish white boy from Detroit but my father came from a shithole Central Michigan farm. And though (gods know) he never talked to me about it, I kind of got the impression he escaped from a shithole Central Michigan farm.
So though there was never a completely rational reason I absorbed certain attitudes about certain things, like to this day I think card games are vaguely sinful but couldn’t begin to tell you why. Then there are informal modes of dress that used to put me off. For example, this guy…
For a while, even though I never paid attention to his act this guy was inescapable on TV and I never liked the looks of him. He pulled off the redneck stereotype too well, and I reacted to it negatively. No logical reason, I just didn’t like it.
So I’m sitting here in the Secret Lair folding work clothes hot off the clothesline, and…
Yeah, I’ve got three or four of them. I even know when it started: A few years ago I tore the sleeve on an old light flannel shirt, hated to get rid of it, and sort of needed a summer gun burqa to throw over a t-shirt for going to town. That’s all I used it for at first, but then the next summer or two it seemed all my t-shirts were, um, shrinking in the wash. Yeah, that’s what was happening. And tight t-shirts are not comfortable in the desert summer heat. So I gradually started wearing that sleeveless shirt instead, and … damned if it wasn’t the most comfortable thing I owned for the weather conditions. There’s a sort of air-flow thing going on you don’t appreciate till you give it a try. I started looking for opportunities to cut the sleeves off old shirts, and once the farmer’s tan modified so I stopped sunburning my shoulders it worked out really well.
That’s not important or anything, I just think it’s funny how your attitude can change. I wouldn’t wear shirts like that, not because they’re redneck – I’m not ashamed of being redneck – but because I thought they were low. Y’know? Like, I’m always trying to plot the precise boundary between redneck and white trash, and making sure I don’t stray too far to the wrong side of it.
🙂 I just gradually decided that that line isn’t how you dress when you’re all by yourself in the middle of the frickin’ desert.
And there you have it, the reason for wearing shirts with the sleeves cut out of them…air flow.
Rednecks also wear sleeveless shirts to lessen the chance of a sleeve being caught up in a piece of machinery and said machinery eating you. Sort of a safety byproduct of the look.
I go with the variation that features the sleeves cut off more-or-less at T-shirt length. I seem to wear out the elbows and lower sleeves first, so just chopping the sleeves at about four/five inches or so from the shoulder seams makes a shirt that has the “air flow” you speak of without approaching the “white trash” line. When the collars wear thru and get frayed, I cut them off as well.
Where in central michigan was the shithole farm?
Not everybody knows this,but Larry the Cable guy is from Minnesota. He’s a Yankee redneck like you ! His southern redneck accent is a put-on,and to hear him talk with his original accent is quite funny.
Long ago I became red trash. Still proud of it.
I’ve always seen rednecks as people who open doors for others, say “yes, ma’am/no ma’am, and otherwise behave politely.
White trash do none of these things.
I’m fond of telling this joke, because of the truth in it:
Q: what’s the difference between a redneck and a cowboy?
A: a redneck takes his hat off indoors.
Sleeves or no sleeves, you’re welcome in my lair anytime, Joel.
The “redneck” character is a product of the hive dwellers. And if you look to hive dwellers to do a character analysis on anybody, well…
Quite frankly, rednecks have more brains than any hive dweller even after chugging a case of Shiner.
I just gradually decided that that line isn’t how you dress when you’re all by yourself in the middle of the frickin’ desert.
So….the remote desert has no dress code? Who knew?
Actually, other than the sunburn protection fabric provides, the terrific handiness of pockets and a gunbelt chafing on bare skin, I suspect you could easily get away with only a layer of sunscreen if you wanted. (Nota bene: pictures not required for confirmation.)