I used to have a great uncle who I got to know pretty good. This old man was a real character! He lived way out in the boon-docks, even compared to me. His house consisted of four rooms and still had the old "blackboard" sheathing on the outside, with no siding over it. You could drive right by his place without ever knowing it. To get in his driveway, after getting to his place, you had to choose from a dozen dirt roads that turned off the main road, and you still didn't get a glimpse of his house until you were in his front yard. Pick the wrong road, and you'd end up at a dead end in some guy's field somewhere! He kept chickens in the front yard, which didn't have a single blade of grass...just dirt. He kept a loaded 12-gage shotgun by the front door and a loaded .38 Special under his pillow. He could sit and tell stories all day about his life, his late wife, drinking gin (his favorite drink), or just on his philosophy of life. He let me deer-hunt on his place for a few years before he died. I remember the first time he told me I could. We walked through the mountain out behind his house so he could show me the property lines, and this old man actually walked me until I had to stop! Me, the Redneck, raised in a mountain, could walk for days on end in any other terrain, and this old man wore me out! To make matters worse, he was in his 90s. Now exactly where in his 90s, I don't think anybody knew for sure. I could ask him his age three times a day and get three different answers. It wasn't that he was ashamed of it, he really didn't care how old he was.

He finally passed away from stomach cancer. The doctors said if he had simply gone to see them, he wouldn't have died when he did. So I decided if he could live as long as he did, and be as vital as he was, then so could I. I copied the one thing that he did different - I really don't care how old I am. Now if you've just GOT to know, I do know I'm in my thirties, but I'm just not gonna think about it any more than that. After all, age ain't nothing but a number.

This goes back a ways to explain. You see, I went through a time when I was searching for myself, trying to figure out just who I really was. It all started when I went to high school. Hollywood doesn't have a high school, so I went to the city school system in the county seat instead of the county high school. I was so country, it was pitiful! Here I was, just as back-woodsy as you can imagine, thrown into the same classrooms with the "elite". To adapt, I tried to be more "city-fied", but that ended up making me look and feel like a fool. Folks started calling me "Redneck". It was meant as a put-down, but after I found out where the term "redneck" came from, I realized that it really did describe me, and it wasn't necessarily all bad. So the name stuck. I'm not just "The Redneck" when I'm on-line, I'm "The Redneck" all the time. If we're in a crowd, don't yell out "redneck" unless you want me to answer, cause I will!

Naw, it's too much trouble. I grew up fighting, and don't care anything about it. I was the smallest kid in my class for a long time, and of course I got picked on unmercifully. I finally toughened up to the point that it didn't hurt to get into a fight. I would actually let the other guy beat on me until he got tired, then I would turn around and play some serious kick-a-butt on him! He couldn't hurt me - I was too tough.

Where I live, we used to haul hay for spending money. I could pick up bales that weighed as much as me, and I NEVER wore gloves. There's something I can't stand about having anything over my hands, don't know why. Any of you who have ever worked in a hay field know what a bale of hay will do to skin; mine was just so tough it didn't bother me.

Now I did have my barroom days, and I used to frequent the meanest joints around. Some of my friends wouldn't even go to the bars with me, cause they were scared. I had my same old attitude, they ain't big enough to hurt me. I remember one time when I was riding around about 50 miles from home with a couple of friends. It was late, late at night and I got hungry. Now, I don't mean I felt like a snack, I mean I was ready to butcher a cow and roast it on a bonfire if I got a chance! We went looking for an all-night fast-food joint. There wasn't one. After a couple of hours, I spotted this little place down off the road, called "Mabel's Bar & Grill". This was a redneck joint if I had ever seen one! It was a block building with no windows, a door that was hung as an afterthought, way back off the road, and the parking lot had pickup trucks, bikes, and a couple of mean-looking hot-rods parked in it. You could hear the music coming through the block walls, and there wasn't a light anywhere around it. Didn't matter to me - I was getting orders from my friends. At first, they were gonna wait in the car with the motor running while I went inside, then they backed out and said they would leave me if I went in. Well, that wasn't a very pleasant thought, so we waited till we got back to eat.

I did develop one thing during those old days: a terrible temper. I never did like to fight, so I would put it off if I thought I could. Problem was, I got this "survival reflex" (that's what I call it) where I would simply black out and couldn't remember what I did. After I hurt a couple of kids back in grammar school, it kinda scared me, so I've worked on it all my life to get it under control. I haven't lost it in several years now, so maybe that's all behind me, but I have been known to attack people like I was some kind of wild animal. There's one guy around here who is still scared of me because he pushed me too far one time, and the weird thing is, he'd make two of me!

OK, this is getting long, but there's one last thing I need to say on this subject: I will try to avoid a fight at any cost, but I won't let somebody run over me or mine. Anybody I catch stealing from me here on my place, or anybody who messes with anybody in my family, had better look out. This redneck will protect what's his, and I've never lost a fight that I fought in!

I used to drink like a fish, but I don't do it much anymore. It's got nothing to do with morality or religion, I just don't want it. I got tired of the hangovers and going to work woozy, and never looked back.

Of course, I did drink when I was younger, and I do mean drink! I had a fully stocked bar, and a separate refrigerator just for beer. I used to throw a Fourth-of-July party every year, and I always had one or sometimes two cans of beer on hand. Now before you decide that ain't much beer, remember that MY cans hold 30 gallons apiece!

My drinks of choice? Well, I had several different brands of beer that I liked. My favorite, I guess, was Coors, followed closely by Pabst Blue Ribbon, Old Milwalkee, and Milwalkie's Best (not bad for cheap beer). But you could easily catch me nursing a Miller High-Life. Now as to liquor, I did enjoy a good swig of Vodka, or Voo-Doo as we liked to call it. My favorite bourbon was a tie between Jim Beam and Southern Comfort. And, of course, I did dearly enjoy moonshine, if it was good moonshine.

We had a few drinks that we were especially fond of. I could make a mean Slo-gin Fizz, and my best friend was a master chef when it came to "Hunch Punch" (a little concoction made of pure-grain alcohol and cherries). I never cared much for wine, with the possible exception of Asti Spumante or Champaign.

I'm gonna put up some of my old "war stories" from those days, since I think they are pretty entertaining. It might show the folks today how we did it back in the good old days!

I'll answer this one when somebody explains to me what "cybersex" is and why it's so popular! Heck, people, I learned to jerk off when I was a young-un, and I didn't need no computer to do it! Now, I can understand the pics all over the net, and I can kinda understand the sound bytes, I can even see a little use in the stories, but what's with having sex through a chat room? How do you, er, uh, I mean, how can, ah, oh, HECK! There's just no way to put this delicately! Kids cover your ears! How can you jerk off when your hands are busy typing?

If you ain't got it yet, the answer is no. Besides, I'm happily married and not about to cheat on her!

I smoke.

Period.

But I have to say that it's amazing that the one small vice I do have is frowned upon so badly by society. I would probably quit smoking years ago if it wasn't for all these self-righteous idiots who keep trying to outlaw smoking. But that's something you don't want me to get started on, cause I'll rant through the next 5 Megs of text!

I started smoking back in school. It was a way to look more popular and fit in, and I actually like the taste of my smokes. My brand? Marlboro, of course (aka "Mulebriars", "Cowboy Killers", etc.)!

Oh, yes, I almost forgot, I am a caffiene junkie, too. I love my Mountain Dew!

Hey, man, I grew up in the 70s! We took the psychadelic 60s and OD'd on it! Yes, I did the drug scene, years ago, but I didn't really care for it (and yes, I inhaled!). Mostly I stayed with marijuana, but I did try some speed and once a little cocaine. That was years ago, though, and I haven't wanted it since.

I run a drafting service, mostly house plans and structural steel drawings. I'm more or less rapidly switching to electronic R & D, though. The possible rewards are greater and it's more satisfying work. Plus there's less pressure involved.

I also sell items on eBay, an on-line action house. Click here to see what I've got going on right now.

I have always been an electronics buff. When I got my first car, a 1967 Volkswagon Beetle, my Dad told me that if it got fixed, I would have to fix it. So I re-built the motor, tuned the suspension, fixed the wiring...until I decided it's time to fix the turn signals.

Now Dad had taught me what he knew about electricity, which was a lot when it came to wiring a house of building. I knew how switches worked, and I could usually fix one if it didn't work. So I thought the turn signals would be easy to fix. I started looking for a flasher. Did you know there's no flasher for the turn signals on a 1967 Volkswagon Beetle? Instead there's this little black box called a "turn-signal/emergengy light controller". It's a little black box with about 20 wires running into the side that controls every aspect of your turn signals. Now this was a little more complicated than a switch!

I finally tracked it down as the problem. Next step: Fix it. I tried to take it apart. It was housed in a welded-plastic cover. No problem, plastic breaks. So I broke off the cover, and beheld my first circuit board. The controller is a series of relays mounted on a board with an electronic pulsing circuit. The relays I recognized, and I knew about relays, but there was also a ton of little cylindrical things with different colors on them. Well, I didn't know diddly about them and a new controller was $25 (a FORTUNE back then), so I wound up re-wiring the turn signals to use an old-fashioned flasher.

I wondered what those little things were for, though, and one day, while in town with Dad at the local Radio Shack, I happened to look at the back wall of the store. There they were, all those little cylindrical things, hanging all over that wall! I asked a salesman what they were. "Resistors". What do they do? "Cut down the amount of current". Unique concept! I always thought you wanted more current - why would anyone want less?

Well, Dad bought me a kit radio for my next birthday, and I began to learn about electronics. I wound up becoming a fixture at Radio Shack, and when the TRS-80's came out (remember them? No, I don't guess you do!), I unpacked the first one, set it up, and began programming it. Later, I watched the evolution of computers right up until the 286 was introduced, and I took FORTRAN programming in college. Believe it or not, computers today work basically the same way they did back then. They are faster, more advanced, and pre-programmed, but they are still descendants of that little TRS-80 with built-in ROM-based OS and 4K of memory.

I now have a 166 Pentium, 32 Meg and 14 Gig of hard drive (that's right, 14 Gig! I like writing programs!).

I like building electronics, drawing, programming/writing code, fishing, hunting, football, and tinkering with old cars. Believe it or not, I am NOT a NASCAR fan (although many of my friends are). I just don't see any sense in watching a bunch of guys drive around in a circle. Now, if they were going somewhere...

My favorite football teams in the NFL are the Washington Redskins and Carolina Panthers. In college ball, there's only one conference, the SEC, and only one real team in it, the Alabama Crimson Tide! ROOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLL TIDE!

As far as cars go, I love the old Mopar muscle-cars. Some of the cars that I have had the privilege to own are:

I'm a big fan of Lynyrd Skynyrd, and I also like Charlie Daniels, Molly Hatchet, .38 Special, Styx, Dr. Hook, the Eagles, and the Marshall Tucker Band. I still have my collection of lps from my younger days which at one time included a complete collection of Lynyrd Skynyrd and almost complete collections of Molly Hatchet, Charlie Daniels Band, and Styx. I refused for years to get a cd player, because I didn't think it was right to suddenly discontinue all lps overnight the way the record companies did.

I also like comedy records, like early Gearge Carlin, Bill Cosby, Jeff Foxworthy and Jerry Clower. I'm not too crazy about Richard Pryor and can't stand Eddie Murphy!

What am I not into? I don't like rap (or hip-hop, or whatever it's being called today). I don't think it takes as much talent to talk as it does to sing, and I believe it will be a passing phase. I was never into punk at all, and there re very few disco songs that I liked (maybe a few by Donna Sumner).

A few more bands that I like: Blondie, the Go-Gos, Sammy Hagar, the entire soundtrack from "Heavy Metal" (The music is better than the movie, and I liked the movie!), Johnny Cash, Hank Williams Sr., some of Hank Williams Jr., Johnny Horton and Johnny Paycheck.

Yes, but I don't belong to any particular denomination. I read the Bible, and I try to live by it. I have accepted the lord Jesus as my personal Saviour, and I do pray quite a bit. Basically, I am just a Christian.

I do enjoy Biblical prophesy. I believe the Bible has been so accurate foir so long that it must be taken as fact, apart from the fact that it is the inspired Word of God. I have some of my prophesy interpretations on this site if you'd like to see them.

I basically believe in more freedom, less government, being tough on violent crime, and equal opportunity. I am against racial quotas (two wrongs don't make a right), censorship, abortion "rights", and gay rights. I have voted Replublican for the last several years, but I still consider myself an Independant. I actually believe the Libertarians have some good ideas, too.

Some of the things I would like to see changed are:

Hey, if you don't agree with me, don't get mad about it, now! Just take the time to intelligently present your views, the way I did!

I prefer to call them "weapons", cause I have more than just guns. In addition several home-made, gang-style weapons and a large knife/saber collection, I do own the following:

Oh, come on! Give me a break! I honestly believe that rednecks are the only people who can be legally be harrassed this way! Would you write to a black man and ask "Did your daddy buy your momma?" OF COURSE NOT! But both statements are stereotypical and bigoted. So take your cultural prejudice and go take a long walk off a short pier!