I’m a Free-Range Southern Boy

On numerous occasions General Lee called the Army of Northern Virginia “His boys”. Now, I’m not trying to glamorize the Confederacy or even General Lee. However, a true Southerner understands why I refer to myself as a “Southern Boy”. I guess “boy” to a Southerner is more of an affection term rather than trying to refer to a grown man as a boy. Like, “Our boys shore played good today.” Referring to the Hogs, who stopped being boys in the 9th grade. So that’s why I’m calling myself a Southern Boy. It’s because I’m part of the South, and I can’t imagine living anywhere else.

Actually, I don’t want my grandchildren hunting Easter eggs in the snow. Yes, I saw that on CNN this morning and just shook my head. Of course, I believe we have just about perfect weather in the south, but it does get hot. What else is new? Hey, I had rather put up with those 60 days (or more) of blistering heat, than live in North Dakota where summer comes and goes over a weekend in August. But outside of those few hot days, we do have some wonderful weather around those hot summers. We’re into a great spring weather pattern now, which makes just walking out in your front yard through blooming azaleas a joy. Of course our Southern falls are another reason to know why life in the South is sometimes breathtaking, and a drive through the Boston Mountains on a day in early November will put an exclamation point on a Southern Fall, and yes, we do have winter, and sometimes we’ll get an inch or so of snow, but that’s just to give our school kids a winter break because an inch of snow closes everything down, but it’ll be gone by one o’clock, and we’ve never had a nor ’easterner down south, which is a good reason not to venture north until May.

I guess having four seasons keeps us Southerners on our toes weather-wise, because, if you don’t like the sun and heat, hang around and the South will give you a dose of rain that may go on for days, and those rains will green up the Southern Landscape and hide a bit or maybe more than a bit of ugly. But that’s just part of the South and thank God the South isn’t just row after row of track homes and packed freeways.

Well, the papers have recently featured stories about “free range kids.” In fact Utah has even passed a bill making free range kids legal. Evidently, in some states unaccompanied young boys and girls have been picked up by police and turned over to juvenile authorities. The Arkansas Legislature has even considered a similar bill, but it died in committee. It seems the fear of abductions stopped the bill. Well, do we need a free range bill here in Arkansas? Heck no! We’ve had free range kids in Arkansas as long as there has been a state. I just I didn’t know young southern boys and girls who roamed the woods and streets were called free range. I thought that was just for chickens. But Southerners have always grown up free range, and that is a wonderful part of being Southern.

I was, and everybody I knew, were a free range boys or girls from 8 years on. Unaccompanied train rides to El Dorado for movies, tramping the woods, and swimming in everything that held water, and most of the year I was barefooted, and I never had an adult around. I did get some cuts, snake bites (non-poisonous ones) and many times I stepped in a big bull-nettle patch and screamed bloody murder. Well, as I think back on my life of running through the woods clad only in cut-off shorts, swimming in the creeks, oil pits, and shooting other kids with slingshots, I think that helped to make me a resourceful person who many times depended upon my wits, common sense, and developed some unusual skills. As a little side note: When I was a sophomore in college, I went to Southern California to visit my aunt and her daughter, Patsy Lee. We went to a boardwalk carnival, and as I stood there and checked out a booth, I whispered to Patsy Lee, “Pick out a stuffed animal.” And I plopped down a dollar of my hard earned money.

“All right, young man, let me show you how to shoot this sling shot…”

“That’s okay, I think I’ve figured it out.”

I stepped up and about as fast as I could shoot I cleared all ten plates off the top row. Of course, since the plates were less than ten yards away, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. A little skill I learned from being a free range kid. Of course, that freedom helps develop my common sense. Like: Don’t hit a hornet’s nest with a stick to see how many hornets will come out, and then act shocked, when you find out that a hornet can fly faster than a twelve-year-old boy can run.

I do think Southerners care about each other because they live in the south, and Southern hospitability is not just wishful thinking. Here’s an example: A group doing a social study set up a car in need of help decorated like an Alabama car-load of folks heading for the annual Auburn vs Alabama football game, and they staged it right out of Auburn’s backyard, where Auburn fans, heading for the big game, would see stranded Alabama fans on the side of the road. Would the Auburn fans stop to help? You bet they would. They swarmed the Alabama car to help, but for Southerners, that’s not a surprise.

Almost all Southerners have rural roots and those roots draw us to the lakes to fish and the woods to hunt, or sometimes we just relish the solitude of a forest or lake. Being a Southern boy or girl means you’re not only a visitor to that mix of woods lakes and meadows, you’re part of it. That makes the South such a wonderful place to call home.

But we Southerners are a diverse bunch of folks, and that mix can be thought of food-wise as putting pepper sauce on greens. Our eccentric characters, which are sprinkled in every southern town, make the little towns in the south sparkle. What would greens be without pepper sauce? Yep they wouldn’t have the taste that sets them apart, and our towns in the south are special because of a few weird folks.

I love the South because our intertwined history connect us all. No, we Southerners haven’t had a perfect history, but I can tell you one thing, it sure ain’t been dull, and Southern History can surprise you, but many times that surprise just confirms what Southerners already know, Southerners are intertwined, and those relationships makes me glad I’m a southern boy, and when I run into a fellow Southerner halfway around the world, we connect, and it make be smile and thank the good Lord, by the grace of God I’m a Southerner.

Richard H. Mason of El Dorado is a syndicated columnist and author and former president of the Arkansas Wildlife Federation and the state Pollution Control & Ecology Commission. He may be reached by email at richard@gibraltarenergy.com.