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Parental Warning


Blue State Blues as Coastal Parents Battle Invasion of Dollywood Values

"I'm not sure where we went wrong," says Ellen McCormack, nervously fondling
the recycled paper cup holding her organic Kona soy latte. "It seems like
only yesterday Rain was a carefree little boy at the Montessori school,
playing non-competitive musical chairs with the other children and his care
facilitators."

"But now..." she pauses, staring out the window of her postmodern Palo Alto
home. The words are hesitant, measured, bearing a tale of family heartbreak
almost too painful for her to recount. "But now, Rain insists that I call
him Bobby Ray. "

Even as her voice is choked with emotion, she summons an inner courage -- a
mother's courage -- and leads me down the hall to "Bobby Ray's" bedroom, for
a firsthand glimpse at the psychic devastation that claimed her son.

She opens the door to a reveal a riot of George Jones CDs, reflective
'mudflap mama' stickers, empty foil packs of Red Man, and U.S. Marine
recruiting posters. In the middle of the room: a makeshift table made from a
utility cable spool, bearing a the remains of a gutted catfish.

"This used to be all Ikea," she says, rocking on heels between heaved sobs.
"It's too late for us. Maybe it's not to late for me to warn others."

Pandora's Moon Pie Box

While poignant, Ellen McCormack's painful battle to save her son is far from
isolated. Across coastal America, increasing numbers of families are
discovering that their children have been lured into "Cracker" culture -- a
new, freewheeling underground youth movement that celebrates the hedonistic
thrills of frog-gigging and outlaw modified sprint cars. No one knows their
exact number, but sociologists say that the movement is exploding among
young people in America's most fashionable zip codes.

"We first detected it a few years ago, with the emergence of the trucker hat
phenomenon," says Gerard Levin, professor of abnormal sociology at the
University of California. "At first we thought it was some sort of benign,
ironic strain. By the time we realized the early wearers really were
interested in seed corn hybrids and Peterbilts, it had already escaped
containment."

Levin points to 'Patient Zero,' who in 1997 was a 23-year old graduate
student in Gender Studies at San Francisco State University.

"During a cross-country trip to New York, he stopped at the Iowa 80 Truck
Stop in Walcott, Iowa, and bought a John Deere gimme cap as a gag souvenir,"
says Levin. "Within a year, he had dropped out of graduate school, abandoned
his SoMa apartment, and and was working at a drive-thru liquor store. Today
he is a wealthy televangelist in Bossier City, Louisiana."

The contagion of 'Patient Zero' would prove devastating. Soon trucker hats
were appearing throughout trendy coastal neighborhoods like Williamsburg and
Park Slope and Portrero Hill, often accessorized with chain wallets and
'wife beater' t-shirts. A new alternative youth movement had emerged,
rejecting the staid norms of establishment NPR society and embracing the
'tune-in, turn-on, chug-up' ethos of the Pabst Blue Ribbon underground.
Before long, it would broadcast its siren call to an even younger
generation -- one whose parents were woefully unequipped to recognize it.

Youthquake

"It was one day last spring," says Ellen McCormack. "My life partner Carol
and I were in the garage, working on a giant Donald Rumsfeld papier mache
head for the Bay Area March Against the War, when Rain walked by. I thought
he looked kind of strange, so I stopped him and looked closely into his
eyes. Then I realized the truth -- he was wearing a mullet. I was shocked,
but he swore to me that it was only ironic."

"After a few months, it was clear Rain had lied to us -- that hideous
Kentucky waterfall was completely earnest ," she adds, choking back sobs.

Her 18-year old son would soon exhibit other signs of disturbing changes.

"I was driving past a McDonalds one day last summer, and I thought I saw
Rain's bike outside. He had told me earlier that he was going to a friend's
house to stuff envelopes for the Dennis Kucinich campaign. I pulled a U-turn
and headed back," she recalls. "When I confronted him in the parking lot, he
started giving me a lame story about how he was only there to protest
globalization, but I could smell the french fries on his breath."

McCormack says that Rain's erratic behavior would also come to include
excessive politeness and deference.

"Everytime I tried to talk to him it was 'yes Momma,' and 'no Momma,' when
he knows **** well my name is Ellen," she says, anger rising in her voice.
"It was like I didn't even know him anymore."

McCormack tried an intervention with friends from the Anti-war community,
but to no avail. In October, Bobby Ray packed up his Monte Carlo and left
for basic training at Camp Pendleton.

"I have no son," she says in a barely audible whisper.

Across the country In toney Westchester County, New York, Jim and Sandy
Vandenberg describe a similar tale of family grief.

"We are people of faith who keep the sabbath," says Sandy, a curator in the
Dada collection of the Museum of Modern Art. "Even when she was a toddler,
we made sure Emily got up early every Sunday morning to read the New York
Times Book Review. Sunday morning was our time, until..."

"Until those ****ed Jesus bastards stole my little girl," interrupts her
husband, barely containing his anger. Once a Freshman honors student in
Lacanian Deconstruction Theory at NYU, their daughter is now better known as
Lurleen McDaniel -- reigning Princess of the Tulsa Livestock Show and Rodeo.

In Bainbridge Island, Washington, single mom Jane Michelson says she began
suspecting that her son Brian was in trouble after he started hanging with a
new crowd at school.

"These weren't normal kids, neighborhood kids in Che t-shirts who want to
drop a couple of hits of X and chill on Radiohead," she says. "They would
talk in a sort of strange code language, like ' Roll Tide! ' and ' Gig 'em
Ags! ' and ' Piiiig Sooieeee! '"

Signs of trouble would soon multiply.

"One day I got into my Volvo and hit the stereo preset for Pacifica Radio,
and then I heard this obscene 'Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy' song coming from
the speakers," she recalls. "The very next week, the maid found a tin of
Skoal in his Wranglers. I told him him right then -- it was either me, or
his tobacco-spitting friends."

Now known as Randy Dale Cash, her estranged son is a starting linebacker for
Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas.

Peer Pressure

Jane Michelson is not alone in her story. Throughout coastal America, school
adminstrators and parents are reporting an alarming surge in 'Cracker'
cliques on campus. Also known as 'Y'alls' or 'Neckies,' officials say the
groups thrive by attracting outcasts and misfits from the student body.

"We try hard to engage all of our students in fun, healthy activities like
Progressive Eco-Action March and Rage Against Intolerance Week," says
Lawrence DiBenedetto of Patrice Lumumba Magnet School in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. "Unfortunately, there are going to be those who fall through
the cracks, into a life of bass fishing and stockcar racing."

It appears those cracks are widening. In one recent three-week period,
fourteen high school students in Portland, Oregon were suspended for
distributing pork rinds; a Burlington, Vermont high school was briefly
closed for decontamination after janitors found a bible hidden in a
restroom; and forty-six undergraduate coeds at Swarthmore were expelled for
staging clandestine Mary Kay cosmetics parties.

"We became suspicious after several heavily made-up students arrived at a
Katha Pollitt lecture in a pink Cadillacs," says Swarthmore Dean of Students
Geraldine Marcus.

Some say the craze threatens even the nation's most exclusive prep schools.
At Exeter, Andover and St. Albans, rumors abound of secret societies where
initiates are steeped in the black arts of restrictor plate cheating and
satellite descramblers. Washington's elite Sidwell Friends School was nearly
forced to close after scandalized parents learned that several students were
openly touting Sams Club cards.

The Eclectic School Aid Hayseed Trip

To better understand what attracts young affluent students to the
subculture, I spent a recent evening interviewing a group of self-described
'Neckies' from exclusive New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois. Like
countless other Friday nights, the close-knit group had made the 80 mile
ritual journey to rural Belvidere, Illinois, to cruise Steak 'N' Shake and
hang out at the Mills Fleet Farm parking lot.

"Y'all, check out these new mudders," says 17-year old 'Dakota,' proudly
displaying the gigantic knobbed tires under his radically lifted 4x4 Audi
Allroad. "I'm fixin' to get me a winch and Tuffbox fer it next week."

Not to be outdone, friend and fellow Neckie 'Duane' sounds 'Dixie' on the
novelty horn of his jacked-up BMW M3. An early graduation gift from his
parents, Duane has turned the expensive German coupe into an homage to the
Dukes of Hazzard's General Lee, complete with orange Stars-and-Bars paint
job and spit cup on the console.

"Grandma gave me some money fer a summer study trip over ta Paris, but I
thought the paint job was cooler," laughs Duane. "Hell, she thinks I'm over
in the Sorbonne right now, studying Foucault and all that ****."

"I'm a-fixin' to put in a nitrous system on the General Lee, so I'ma call
Grandma up and aks her for some book money," he adds.

Like most of their classmates, these North Shore Neckies were once bound for
some of the top universities in America -- Yale, Duke, Stanford,
Northwestern -- until they succumbed to the allure of the Downhome slacker
lifestyle. Now some openly talk of dropping out, learning TIG welding,
waiting tables at Waffle House or draining oil at Jiffy Lube; some even hint
of enrolling at Iowa State. What drives privileged teens to such seemingly
self-destructive behavior?

"I guess you might could say we're rebels," says Rachel 'Tyffanie' Stern,
17, lighting a Merit Menthol 100. Once destined for Vassar, Stern is now
living with friends after her parents kicked her out of the house for
spending her bat mitzvah money on a bass boat. Last month she became the
youngest Jewish female to win an event on the Bassmasters Pro Tour.

Pausing for furtive glances, several of the teens share sniffs from a bottle
of Harmon Triple Heat deer scent.

"Wooo-eee, **** howdy, that's gonna bring a mess of them whitetail bucks,"
says 19-year old Wei-Li 'Lamar' Cheung. A former Westinghouse Science Award
winner, Cheung has devoted his chemistry and biology skill to building a
fledgling hunting supply business.

A first generation Asian-American, Cheung says he was drawn to the group by
their acceptance of minorities. "Hell, I kept tellin' all my family and
teachers I wanna play fiddle , not violin," he explains. "The 'Necks accept
me the way I am."

African-American Kwame 'Joe Don' Harris agrees. "Just because I'm black,
teachers were always pushing me to go to Spellman to study Langston Hughes
and Thelonius Monk," says the 17 year old. "These ol' boys here never laugh
at my dream to be a crew chief for the Craftsman Truck Series."

If there is one aspiration that unites them all, it is the dream of moving
to Branson, Missouri. Long famed for its laid-back attitude toward religion,
country music and the military, Branson has become a Mecca for radical young
Neckies seeking an escape from the stultifying conformity of their coastal
hometowns.

"****, y'all, I heard Branson's got like four Wal Marts, and more $5.95
all-day breakfast buffets than Glencoe has Starbucks," enthuses Dakota,
adding quickly that "pardon my French."

"Plus it's only a short drive up to Fort Leonard Wood," adds Tyffanie.

Talk arises of Branson's 'Summer of Bubba,' the upcoming hedonistic
hillbilly festival of music, hog calling and nightcrawler gathering expected
to draw millions of Neckies from as far as Santa Monica and Ithaca -- even
Europe.

"Y'all, I heard them Swedish 'Necks are hardcore," says Joe Don. "They
digitally remastered all the original Jerry Clower albums."

A live-for-today attitude permeates the group's ethos, with little concern
about consequences. I ask Justin 'Jim Rob' Borowski, 18, what motivates
young men and women to abandon promising academic careers in Gender Theory
and Critical History to take a wild ride in the dark world of roofing and
drywall contracting.

"My daddy was sorta mad when I tolt him I was gonna skip Columbia Journalism
School for a plumbing apprenticeship," he answer philosophically, popping a
plug of Red Man into his lip. "I tolt him that journalism is important, but
the world needs plumbers too."

"After the toilet backed up, I think he got my point."
"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness"-Joseph Conrad
Original Post

Replies sorted oldest to newest

quote:
Originally posted by alacharger:
It's just a sarcastic jab at posts that have no personal inspiration of the poster...cut and paste jobs.

BTW, it's a diatribe on liberal parents with kids that want to "go southern". I knew it was long, and hard to read, but I thought somebody would "read between the lines".


OHHHHHH!!!!!!! NOW I SEE EXACTLY WHAT YOU MEAN ON THE POST...

Sorry for having to ask... should've known that!!! hahaha
quote:
Originally posted by Kindred_Spirit:
Okay, now my ignorance is showing, I didn't even get past the first 2 paragraphs... (I'm sorry)... just too long to read and I still dong know the point!


Its a message to me, and MY FRIEND THE charger like you, don't like my post also, and thats ok.So, he post stuff to me in a humor way, and that is good. I think its Cool!! Its American Way! Posting is just like sports, you can be a good sport or bad one. of course chager fails to say andthing about his copy and paste jobs with a few ohters as well, but I have reply to most of my copy and paste.Y'ALL BE GOOD!Don't forget church tomorrow, or do you go?
quote:
Originally posted by pba:
quote:
Originally posted by Kindred_Spirit:
Okay, now my ignorance is showing, I didn't even get past the first 2 paragraphs... (I'm sorry)... just too long to read and I still dong know the point!


Its a message to me, and MY FRIEND THE charger like you, don't like my post also, and thats ok.So, he post stuff to me in a humor way, and that is good. I think its Cool!! Its American Way! Posting is just like sports, you can be a good sport or bad one. Y'ALL BE GOOD!


I'm always a good sport. I always play fair, obey the rules and have a GREAT time.
quote:
Originally posted by alacharger:
quote:
Originally posted by pba:
quote:
Originally posted by Kindred_Spirit:
Okay, now my ignorance is showing, I didn't even get past the first 2 paragraphs... (I'm sorry)... just too long to read and I still dong know the point!


Yep, I was braging on you! thats more than you do for me! lol!

Its a message to me, and MY FRIEND THE charger like you, don't like my post also, and thats ok.So, he post stuff to me in a humor way, and that is good. I think its Cool!! Its American Way! Posting is just like sports, you can be a good sport or bad one. Y'ALL BE GOOD!


I'm always a good sport. I always play fair, obey the rules and have a GREAT time.
quote:
Originally posted by pba:
quote:
Originally posted by alacharger:
quote:
Originally posted by pba:
quote:
Originally posted by Kindred_Spirit:
Okay, now my ignorance is showing, I didn't even get past the first 2 paragraphs... (I'm sorry)... just too long to read and I still dong know the point!


Yep, I was braging on you! thats more than you do for me! lol!

Its a message to me, and MY FRIEND THE charger like you, don't like my post also, and thats ok.So, he post stuff to me in a humor way, and that is good. I think its Cool!! Its American Way! Posting is just like sports, you can be a good sport or bad one. Y'ALL BE GOOD!


I'm always a good sport. I always play fair, obey the rules and have a GREAT time.


Well then, I appreciate the compliment. Thank you, sir.

But you do err; I have defended your stand on at least a couple of subject matters. We don't always agree, but at least we're civil Big Grin
quote:
Originally posted by alacharger:
quote:
Originally posted by pba:
quote:
Originally posted by alacharger:
quote:
Originally posted by pba:
quote:
Originally posted by Kindred_Spirit:
Okay, now my ignorance is showing, I didn't even get past the first 2 paragraphs... (I'm sorry)... just too long to read and I still dong know the point!


Yep, I was braging on you! thats more than you do for me! lol!

Its a message to me, and MY FRIEND THE charger like you, don't like my post also, and thats ok.So, he post stuff to me in a humor way, and that is good. I think its Cool!! Its American Way! Posting is just like sports, you can be a good sport or bad one. Y'ALL BE GOOD!


I'm always a good sport. I always play fair, obey the rules and have a GREAT time.


Well then, I appreciate the compliment. Thank you, sir.

But you do err; I have defended your stand on at least a couple of subject matters. We don't always agree, but at least we're civil Big Grin


Ok, my friend,sorry about that, did not see those posts. if you say you did, that is good enough fo me! Yes and I do thank you for your kindnest you have always show me!

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