Happy Turkey Day everyone! I’m sitting here in Hermitage, PA, where I’ve gone over the river and through the woods and routed through Cincinnati to Grandmothers house I’ve come. We went to the mall for Black Friday… I’m sorry you had to work through that Lauren. Anyway, it was definitely an experience. Everyone was wearing fashions that either came from the 80s, or the trendsetters were sporting trends from 2 years ago. I did however get to see an entire mullet family, dad had a little business up front, but a whole lot of party in the back, mom had a more feathery style, and then the little boy and girl had a bowl cut working simultaneously with the mullet. Very impressive. Other notes on Western PA living. Are you all aware that Monday is a holiday… that is correct. It is the day when we all come together to celebrate the opening day of deer hunting season.
…Monday Night
I am sitting here in the airport in Charlotte waiting for my delayed flight to leave… there is little to no reason why we are sitting here other than that other screwed up flights are making us late. So I shall continue my story of western PA. So on the Monday holiday. My uncle was quite upset when he discovered that my junior-in-high school cousin would rather spend his day up in the ‘Media Room’ with a girl than waking at 4 in the morning to sit freezing one’s ass off in a deer stand waiting for just the right opportunity to gun down Bambi as he innocently munches grass in a meadow. Oh how will my cousin ever learn to fend for his family without the basic survival instincts of the hunter today? It seems like a truly fair fight when you have an arsenal of weapons with you at your disposal, including multiple rifles and bows and perhaps even a good flashlight for use at night to stun your victim and all they have is a pair of antlers. Enough about that… I wouldn’t want to lessen my uncle’s complete feeling of elation when he called his mommy on the first day of hunting season overjoyed at the fact that he killed himself a 13-point buck. It is what you think, the deer had thirteen points to his antler rack… granted even numbers would be the most obvious, but apparently this little guy grew up too close to some power lines. Anyway he drives up to grandma’s house on her suburban cul-de-sac with a 3 year old deer hanging off the back of his pick-up truck. With reluctance we raced out to oh and ah appropriately at the kill. He proudly exclaimed that it had already been weighed and gutted and that he was en route to show his wife and then straight off to the butchers and the taxidermist to get the head mounted. This is all being said as my dad, the former… or not-so-former hippy sadly pets the head of the dear and exclaimed that it seems a bit young to be robbed of its life essence. We were sworn to secrecy that we couldn’t tell my aunt about the deer so that he could be the first to spread the good news. I thought with some irony that nothing truly says romance, and touches a woman’s heart like a dead 13-point buck parked in the drive… perhaps they can even mount it above the bed. When romance is afoot they can string some lights on it and lay a gauzy read fabric over the rack.
Other notes on Western PA:
- the “freeway” is the two lane road that passes through town, and heavy traffic is a stream of 6 cars parked at a red light
- the big city… which no one dares venture to for its shear metropolis status… is Pittsburgh or Cleveland. All other major cities are strictly referre3d to as places where one’s relatives live, or an airport one flew through to get to an equally small city elsewhere in the country.
- the mall consists of a Sears, JCPenneys and an Auntie Anns
- Starbucks does not exist, and Chai Tea is for the adventurous
- the best Chinese food in town comes in the form of a buffet with 200 items plus and must include pizza, steak and cheese sticks
- Eagle scouts is a way of life
- SuperWalmart = progress
- society’s elite live on the hill in 300 thousand dollar homes with landscaping equaling topiaries, gazing balls and fountains with naked cherubs
- you know everyones business… and I mean everyone, neighbors, church members, the one homeless guy in town
- 4 wheeling is a way of life, second only to the hunting previously hinted at
All in all I believe that there is a “country” vein that runs from the pan-handle of Florida straight up to Lake Erie and nothing is safe in its path. Call is what you will, redneck, white trash, country, hillbilly… it exists and I have seen it.
… and lived to tell.
Sounds so… cracker chic
I might have to destroy you… though you might be right.
(if this was posted twice it’s because the security code thing for your comments runs some letters off the edge of the image. most noticibly lowercase Qs and Gs.)