My Secret Life as an Idaho Redneck

Disclaimer: If you consider yourself to be any kind of real redneck you will probably cringe and turn away in disgust. In that case, I feel the need to give some background. This is a response to the false claim that my family are a little bit redneck-y and the only way I could think to rebut these ideas is to make fun of myself, and rednecks, just a little bit.

A real redneck truck for a real redneck
(photo courtesy of Big Redneck Trucks)

I have a secret: I've got a little bit of a night-job as a redneck. We've got a beater truck with a winch on the front to get us out of tight spots and snowdrifts or to pull trees down in the more-than-occasional chance that we run into a woodcutting mishap. My dad rides a snowmobile like a native, which is lucky considering it's the only way to get into our cabin six months out of the year. We sleep in the back of the truck, own some scratched country CDS and grow potatoes in our yard. My cousins and I used to play a game called Motorcycle vs. Runner: a game where the little kids, on motorcycles and four wheelers, tried to run over the big kids, who were running for their lives. This resulted in some dangerously close calls, my brother running a dirt bike up a pine tree and landing underneath it and me nearly driving a two-foot-tall motorcycle over my brand new bike. We consider it a family bonding experience when a truck or a car, or a razor gets stuck in hood-high snow drifts, or sinking in a lake. My parents throw their aluminum beer cans in the fire. (Ok, the last sentence is a joke. But the rest is all true.)

Our truck (aka not a redneck truck)

I've got another secret: I'm actually terrible redneck. I have an irrational fear of driving an automobile larger than an electric scooter, so my redneck life is strictly confined outside of the dirt biking, diesel-leaking, speed and dust activities. Being a vegetarian, shooting anything alive is out of the question.
To be honest, the only reason I would be interested in shooting anything would be in biathlon, which is just about the coolest sport in the athletic world. I like breathing hard, not breathing exhaust. I am also a treehugger, and get more upset about plastic water bottles and climate change than gun control (which I think is a great idea.) There was a time in my life when I shot at a beer bottle, but it was a toy version at my cousin's house.


Even our somewhat redneck traits are deluded. Motorcycle vs. Runner was banned by some responsible adult. The potatos live in an organic garden box. On those few occasions that we do snowmobile, we are crammed on four to a seat. The country CDs are Waylon Jennings, not Toby Keith and our truck is a Toyota Tacoma not a Ford with a confederate flag painted on the side.


What is my point? I am not a redneck. Not even a little bit...but nice try.


Ciao,

Victoria