Growing up in Augusta, Ga., in the early days of desegregation I went to three or four different elementary schools. Every year or so the schools were rezoned to create more of a racial balance. Sometime it was close enough that I walked to school; sometimes I walked to and from a bus stop each day to get to school and back home. I never was big on school lunch. I carried a metal lunch box to school with me. And everyday on the way home I would hunt for a gift for my mother to put in the lunchbox - a live lizard.
It was probably cruel (both to her and the lizard). I never remember anything that led me to believe that my mom liked lizards. (I'm pretty sure she didn't.) But lizards abounded in our part of Georgia and it became a routine. Sometimes it was a Green Anole (Anolis carolinensis) with a big neck fan. I liked the Five-lined Skink (Eumeces fasciatus) because its blue tail was pretty (I thought). Six-Lined Racerunner (Cnemidophorus sexlineatus) were common in the lunchbox. And there were always a few Ground Skinks (Scincella lateralis) around if I couldn't catch anything else.
In retrospect the lizards may not have been a great idea. Mom had had open heart surgery in 1968, a year or two earlier. But I never really understood then that her health was fragile. She'd always be there. How could it be different? I'd come in from school. "I'm home!"
She'd be in the kitchen. I'd take my lunchbox in and sit it on the counter. I'd sit down at the kitchen table. She'd look at me.
"There's not anything in your lunchbox today, is there?" she'd ask.
"No," I'd say. Then I'd giggle like a girl and sit there and wait.
Eventually she'd open the lunchbox. The scared, confused skink would jump out and run around the kitchen. Mom would let out some audible startle response. I'd laugh; then I'd save her by chasing down that day's reptile and taking it outside. Day after day...
Somehow she still loved me.
Happy Mother's Day, Mom...
Silly Season has started. And for the past decade, as I've watched this time of year when teaching positions in my county change hands I've compared it to a large game of musical chairs. 
Tomorrow is Wednesday. I'll have to iron a black shirt. And a black pair of pants. And perhaps polish my black boots a little. Because on Wednesdays I wear black...
I occasionally write letters to the editor. Often my letters are in response to someone else's letter. Someone writes in and misrepresents some data, skews the truth on some issue or topic I hold dear. I feel compelled to correct their misinformation, to point out the inaccuracy. The problem I often encounter is that if I don't respond, those who read that first letter believe it. But if I do respond, some people think I'm as dense as the first person.
I live in a rural portion of Central Appalachia. A small creek runs through my backyard. I have a willow and a few walnut trees and four acres of land with sourwood, oak, locust, crabapple, and a few other trees. In the nine years I've lived in this house I've seen raccoons, possums, stray dogs, squirrels, chipmunks, deer, groundhogs, house cats, bobcats, my goats, and the neighbor's cows in my yard. And that's just counting the mammals. The birds are even more amazing. We've had Eastern Bluebirds in a house on our fence three of the last five years. There are scores of finches, orioles and cardinals, indigo buntings, a variety of woodpeckers, a heron that wades up our creek, mourning doves, the ever-present sparrows and wrens, robins and blue jays, and a screech owl that spends the summers in the woods around us.
I suppose anyone could live here - hillbilly or not. So my residence (and visitors) by itself doesn't make me a redneck. When I take stock of my own personal attributes that might qualify me (or disqualify me) as a redneck/country boy the verdict seems mixed, inconclusive. I've eaten escargot (snails), octopus, caviar, ox tongue and sushi - and liked it all. That probably calls into doubt my credentials as a redneck. I own a gun; but I'm not an NRA member and I haven't actually shot my gun at anything recently. I can't fix my own truck, but I do have a truck. 
I'm not sure I want to be a redneck. While there is some semantic overlap between the three terms I'm considering ("redneck," "hillbilly," and "country boy") they are by no means synonymous. I think of "hillbilly" as almost an ethnic designation; a hillbilly is a member of the culture or society that inhabits one of the rural mountainous areas of the U.S. Being a redneck, on the other hand, seems like more of a class distinction to me and has more to do with behavior than with values or culture. Hillbillies (and country boys) grow their own tomatoes; rednecks throw them at player they don't like at ball games...
The most recent decision that I've faced that made me question my hillbilly identity occurred a week or so ago on my drive to work. I drive about 20 miles to work. When I get in my vehicle of the mornings I'm in the Tennessee River Valley. I drive north on a two lane US highway that takes me up and over a ridge and as I start to descend I enter the Big Sandy section of the Ohio River Valley. Then: 
