Rednecks, airboats and spring water

We got there and it was packed with seemingly every redneck within 50 miles. Fortunately, most of em were well behaved and mostly sober. What struck me was that most of the girls were overweight and all of them except one good looking redhead had "Tramp Stamp" tattoos on their lower backs. Do white trash rednecks really think tattoos look good? I really can't be too hard on em cuz I am probably related to half of em in a complicated way (being a local myself). My kids were apalled and amazed at such redneckism, I think they lead a much more sheltered life than I did since they go to upper income schools whereas I went to the worst local schools.

What did piss me off was the airboats, there were about 8 of them. The Wacissa River is very shallow in places and is covered with hydrilla (invasive non-native plant) and some floating native plants so is not easily navigable by most boats. I can understand why some people have them for getting to fishing holes in shallow water but I wish they'd avoid being around other people cuz they are so loud they hurt your ears at 300'. These guys were not doing any fishing but were only running up and down the river making noise and spoiling it for everyone else. Every one of these airboats was piloted by a guy with a huge beer gut, control stick in one hand and beer can in the other.

In spite of the airboats, the kids had a good time. My 15 yr old son tried to impress his gf but he has no skill in canoeing. My 10 yr old daughter loved the whole thing. We all watched a smallish gator stalking a wading bird (it got away). I am trying to get my kids familiar with the canoe so they will do more outdoors stuff instead of wimpy computer games but watching my son trying to tie a knot makes me want to beat my head on a tree. I thought he would just learn these things like I did without being taught but I s'pose its a different world.

In our area school enrichment groups have sprung up to provide additional funds or other enriching items to support the local schools. In higher income areas this works very well.

I don't understand why we think that throwing more money at schools equals better education. Better teachers (with teacher testin) and involved parents equals better education. Here, we seem to have a fixation on facilities and spend enormous sums on new schools. The buildings are beautiful brick structures with incredible landscaping and cost an arm and a leg. Of course the roofs leak at the approach of the first tropical system. Seems to me we could provide an equal educational opportunity in a well insulated metal structure for about 35% of the cost??

When I was a kid here, my family home was just above "double wide" level (and there were 9 kids) and most of my classmates were the poorest rednecks and the poorest blacks, a great combination. My high school was basically a babysitting service for poor kids until they went into the army,the guidance department had no notion of college. Today, we live on the affluent side of town, are solidly middle class and my kids attend one of the top 100 public high schools in the country where 90% of the kids go to college. My kids classmates normally own their own cars that are always nicer than what I drive. Exposure to the extreme redneck element was a culture shock to my sheltered kids but part of my past.

.... but it does make a better football program ;-)

What ethnicity is "red neck" and how do they identify them? Are they required to carry cards or other ID?

LOL! I never heard those ugly "butt billboards" called that before.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Now that's a new one on me too!

Perhaps this will result in another Supreme Court decision and new busing requirements to level the playing field? After all, we can't have economic segregation, can we?

The airboat idiots would go charging up the creeks of the ICW at high speeds and high noise levels, and then bounce over the marsh to the next creek, destroying habitat in their path. I was always hoping to see one snagged and stopped short by a stump so that the driver would go flying but, alas, it never happened while I was fishing.