Just Country

Got a neat surprise this Easter Sunday – a cousin (and his wife and her sister) from Arkansas paid us a visit. Seems they were in Branson (for what else?) and thought it would be a shame to be so close (45 minutes or so) and not drop by. So they did and we had a good Easter dinner and nice chat.

My cousin said something that caught me off-guard. We were talking about family (and I won’t mention any names) and he said we weren’t like everybody else; we were “country.” His word. Now I take that as a compliment and he meant it as one but albeit an unusual one.

When I was a kid and really for most of my formative years, I was a City-boy. Whenever we’d visit my “country cousins” I always felt a little out-of-place. When I was very young things mostly scared me. Snakes, dogs, outhouses. When I got older, things mostly were just not me. I liked my air conditioning and indoor plumbing. At school we always talked (and not in a nice way) about the ‘kickers’ and ‘ropers’ in the more rural schools. Being seen inside the City limits in an FFA jacket was the 60s equivalent in Dallas of wearing the wrong colors in a LA neighborhood. (Though secretly I really liked the jean jackets with the bright gold embroidery on the back.)

I always liked my Arkansas cousins but they were several years older than me and when I was a pre-teen, they were teens and no self-respecting teen was going to spend time me. Except I do recall my cousin Diane taking me to the Dairy Mart (or whatever the local version of Dairy Queen was in their very small town.) When I was a teen, they were married with little kids of their own. Like I said; not real close.

But a funny thing happens when you grow up. For one we live in the country now. We raise sheep. I work outside a lot. I’m not afraid to get a little (you know what) on my boots. Did I say boots? Yep. Cowboy boots. Three pair of them. A pair of dressy black Ariats, a nice sort of go-to-work-in-the-city brown Tony Lama's and a really scuffed pair of work-boots.

Some of my family have become country music fans. I like some of it but I’m still at my core a jazz fan but pretty eclectic overall in my musical tastes. We go to rodeos regularly.

So I guess I find it odd that since during most of the times my cousin knew me or saw me I was probably either a scared city-slicker or in my “could care less” teens; that now of all people he sees me as someone he can relate to. And we do. We talk about animals, our relatives – whatever and our age difference (10 years) no longer is much of a barrier.

I have one grown daughter who has reverted to my genetic default I guess. She lives in the City and wants little if anything to do with our so-called “country life.” We happen to like lots of the same music and relate pretty well. But she’s going to be a full-blown city-dweller most of her life (unless she ends up in Telluride or Jackson Hole or someplace where the City and country and the west all sort of blend into something that doesn’t have a name – or maybe it does; countrypolitan.)

Until then she will turn up her nose and give us that look whenever she thinks we’ve gone too country. So between a cousin who thinks we’re doing alright and a daughter who rolls her eyes at some of our antics; I’m not sure where we fall but I’ll take ‘country’ any day.