First I have to introduce you to Ginger. She is my new 2009 Mazda Miata. Ginger says Zoom Zoom.
Anyone who has known me for a while knows I fell in love with the Miata at first sight in 1991. I finally was able to buy one in about 2000 but had to sell it shortly after that. My wonderful husband has helped me to buy this one, fully loaded with a Bose stereo system, heated leather seats, canvas top, and the upgraded suspension package. Basically if it is available for this car it has it. She does not feel like the rickety damp hummingbird my old was. This is a comfortable, sleek racing machine and since I have never had so much as a parking ticket in my life I think its about time I took my chances.
Mark is building a small house in the back that he is calling a shed. This will hold all the junk in the "basement"so that Ryan (his son who is 21) can have a place to sleep, Mark can have his pool/ping pong table, Miranda can have her friends sleep over on the huge couches and I can have my laundry area and some decent storage. This will basically double the size of our house.
We borrowed Ryan's pick-up truck to haul lumber from Home Depot (though I prefer Lowes, I hate the color orange) and once I mounted the thing like a mighty steed, I found some tell tale signs of what Life As Ryan is like. I call it:
YOU MIGHT BE A REDNECK IF...
You own a pick-up. Period.
This pick up requires a ladder, a stepping stool or you to be under 40 to be able to gracefully board it.
...your dash is decorated with your baseball cap collection.
...Your console looks like this:
...and Carrie Underwood's song applies to it.
At first this was all quite funny to me. Ryan certainly fits your stereotypical redneck from Florida. But the more I was in the truck the more I thought about Ryan and the more I started to envy him.
Ryan is at an age now where he is truly on the cusp of manhood and teenagerville, a place most of us navigate poorly or never really do at all. But Ryan is different. Ryan knows who he is. He knows what he likes. He knows what he believes in and has the courage to stand up for those beliefs. He and I do not see eye to eye on many issues, but his beliefs are so pure they command respect. He is who he is and if you don't like it then you don't have to be part of his life. This all coming from a person who is 21 years old. I know many 50 year olds who have not reached this level of self acceptance. He has his friends and his interests. He has his hobbies and he enjoys his work, which he labors at at a pace I could not have managed even at his age. He pays his bills and he is honest...when it counts (come on he IS 21 still). He respects his parents, the country, and the women, family or friend, he loves. Riding in that truck I realized that Ryan is a simple man. Not dumb, oh no, not by a long shot, but he has a simple life and it suits him.
After a while some questions came to mind. Think about your life. Do you know who you are? Can you list your true friends? Do you know your passions and do you go after them? Do you live your life for yourself and everyone else be damned? Do you have a code of ethics you are proud of and that you uphold? These are not easy things to accomplish, yet Ryan had managed to do it before he was legally an adult. Have you? Maybe its not the antidepressants, alcohol or tranquilizers we need, its simply to live more genuinely.
So yes, he is redneck and I will always have a blast poking fun at him about it, but my sense of self is not as developed as his, I cannot count true friends on more than one hand, and at times I care too damn much what others think of me, and I am almost as old as his mother!
The next time you run across a person who fits a stereotype to a tee just remember that the cliches they represent come from being who they want to be, and if that means country music, chewing tobacco, cowboy boots and a HUGE truck, so be it.
Tonight he is having a bar-b-que with some close friends, probably around the bonfire in the back yard. They will drink beer from a bottle and probably get around to talking about last year's deer season and listening to some country classics...and all of them will be nourishing their souls on a level I am not true enough to myself to come close to.
You are a good person Ryan. Your father is proud of you, I love you like my own son and you are turning into a fine man (though you should be nicer to your sister, she worships the ground you walk on you know. And running water over your dirty dishes wouldn't be too bad an idea either, oh and those greasy uniforms......)
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