Redneck misconceptions: We are all a bunch of uneducated idiots

I throw around the word "redneck" pretty liberally because I am not at all ashamed of that moniker. It means different things to different people and the people in my community don't really take offense at it. To us it just means someone that appreciates nature, would prefer to not be in a metropolis, tend to have conservative ideals, and appreciated the simple things in life such as cheap beer.

There are some things that unfairly get attributed to us though and one of those things is that we are all a bunch of hillbillies that wouldn't get a single answer on Jeopardy correct even if we were working as a team. So let me try to put this idea to rest ok? Because it isn't at all true.

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_{these are some coasters I found that I am going to have to buy at some point}

When I decided to go to college after high school, I wasn't alone with this notion in my country-life community. Believe it or not, country folks like myself and my family want to be capable of getting the best jobs that we can as well. We might go about it a bit differently and I will go ahead and admit that a great many of us decide to go to trade school or community college rather than head into a 4 year program at a State college.

One thing that members of the redneck community rarely do is go off to a university that is really far away from our "home turf" and families, because generally speaking, rednecks are very family-oriented. Therefore, I attended the university that was nearest my city. Greenville, North Carolina was only about 30 minutes away from my high school, so it's not like I was heading off to California and ditching on my family. In fact, at first I actually still lived with my parents and commuted to school.

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I quickly tired of the 30 minute commute, especially once I found myself in a situation where there were 3 or 4 hours between my classes and there is only so much time you can spend in the library. Although I will say that this time where I basically had nothing to do other than get my studies done probably benefitted me in my freshman year while a lot of my classmates were hung over and missing tons of classes. I still lived with my parents and drink driving was out of the question, so I actually did much better than a lot of my classmates when I was the ripe young age of 17.

In my first semester I made the Dean's list (all A's and B's) and in my second semester I made the Chancellor's List (all A's) and both were on full course loads. When it came time for me to declare a major it was really easy for me to decide because while I had been in high school I frequently took on construction jobs that my father recommended for me. I knew from the experience that I had in that field that the real money was in the hands of the guys doing the contracting and I wanted a piece of that action.

In my second year at college I had my major and most of my classes were specific to it. I moved into an apartment with some roommates and even though my mom was upset about it I think she was kind of pretending and was actually dancing on the table as soon as my car got out of sight and I had moved out.

I continued to do well in school although the temptation of drinking on weekdays was definitely there and I regularly participated. I do think I was more disciplined though because my parents were just half an hour down the street and if my grades started to slip they still had a "leash on me" and would pull me out if I started screwing things up. This is where the strong family bond comes in real handy, even if you don't really appreciate it at the time.

I now own my own construction business and can at least in part attribute this to things that I learned while in college. I graduated in 4 years in the top 15% of my class and in all that time I only ever got one grade that wasn't an A or a B. The lone C that I got was in a Literature class and while I am not trying to make any excuses, I have always hated those sort of stuff because the grading seems so subjective (does the teacher agree with your idea of what Shakespeare REALLY meant?) and I don't really understand what the hell any English Literature has to do with a Construction Management major anyway.

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So I realize that I am just one person but I want you to understand that I am not an anomaly. In fact, most of the people in my community have some level of higher education and those that don't didn't just sit around on their asses in their trailers watching Hee-Haw. They were normally quite talented already at something like welding, car repair, or some sort of construction-oriented thing like carpentry. Very few of us work in retail and one of my redneck neighbors is a veterinarian.

Rednecks were not "built" to work in retail or the food-service industry and I don't know anyone that does this unless they are teenagers. If you were to spend a day at the Elk's Lodge with us good ol' boys you would find yourself surrounded by a group of people that have very practical skills and we can fix almost anything. Oh and almost none of us actually live in trailers either. That's another stigma that is attributed to us that isn't deserved.

So while the stereotype of us not being able to do so well at Jeopardy might in fact, be true. We are good at other things, things that I consider a lot more practical than a degree in something with the word "studies" on the end of it. We aren't really all that different than other parts of society but I do know one thing for certain: If something is broken and you can choose between a bunch of New York City types or the rednecks of New Bern to be on your team to fix it, I would definitely choose the "uneducated" rednecks any day.