Not sure if the guy who posted this comment over at Tim Blair was for real, but it was amusing, nevertheless:
In the ’60s, I remember using pages of a Sears catalog after dropping a chalupa in the family outhouse that was behind our white trash Scots-Irish hovel in rural Alabama.
In the ’80s, I was qualified to supersonically deliver a tactical nuke to a Commie address in a F-4E Phantom II.
You see, to me, that’s America. No matter how humble one’s upbringing, you have an opportunity to learn how to nuke commies if you apply yourself.
HOOOOOOOOAH!
8 Comments
I’m from the Arkansas Ozarks, so my culture is Scotch-Irish, but like most ‘Scotch-Irish,’ I’m pretty mongrelized — Irish, Welsh, English, Scottish, French, German, and Cherokee (and probably a lot of other ethnicities that I don’t know about). That last part of me doesn’t much care for Andrew Jackson, but I understand what is meant by Jacksonian Democracy and the positive things that it wrought.
The term “Scotch-Irish” is peculiar to America (so far as I know). I wonder if it has to do with accent, “Scotch” being a pronunciation of “Scots.” I’m assuming that the “Scots” that belongs in the term “Scots-Irish” comes from the Scottish folk who spoke “Scots” as their dialect, which was mostly Germanic with a few Celtic terms borrowed (and does this mean that the Scots aren’t really Celts?).
By the way, while I didn’t live in a trailer, I did have to use an outhouse when I was growing up in the 60s, and yes, there really was a big Sear and Roebuck catalogue for reading and other pleasures. Read a page, use it, drop it down the memory hole.
Now, I’m a university professor. Ain’t America great? Oh, wait … I’m working at a Korean university.
Well, it’s great anyway.
Jeffery Hodges
What a sweet story, Jeffery. What a pity you can’t read internet pages and then stuff them down the memory hole in quite the same way. [Wink]
Jeffrey, Scot-Irish is related to Ulster. Pick up a history of Ulster and you’ll find the origin of the term. The English recuited lowland Scots for their Ulster plantation, thereby creating the “Scotch-Irish” when this group immigrated to America to settle in territories inhabited by Scots from Scotland. The Sand Hills of North Carolina, to name one area (and home to Scotland county), received a large amount of Scot immigration, to the point that a gaelic newspaper was being published there in the 1760’s. It also provided two Scottish regiments to the king during the 1776-1784 unpleasantness, strangely enough manned by gaelic speaking Catholic highlanders. The Presbyterians and Methodists went with the Continental Congress, and so after the war the loyalists were shipped off to Nova Scotia. Flora MacDonald, who saved Bonnie Prince Charlie, actually resided in Campbeltown (modern Fayetteville) for a period. In a more modern era, nearby Buie’s Creek’s Campbell College awarded an honorary degree to Ian Paisley, a peacemaker equalling at least the stature of Le Duc Tho or Menagem Begin. I presume on the theory that he was keeping the flame of Scot-Irish resistance to popism alive.
Thanks, “lirelou,” for the extra information. The Sand Hills Gaelic-speaking Catholic Highlanders who fought for England and her King during the American Revolution appear to be outliers. From what I’ve read, the lowland Scots seem to dominate the Scotch-Irish and also didn’t speak Gaelic. But I haven’t read much.
There weren’t many Gaelic words in the Ozarks — possibly anagogglin (which means “to go in a rather zigzag way to get someplace”), but most of the Ozark dialect sounded simply like an older form of English.
By the way, that “big Sear and Roebuck” didn’t ’sear’ anybody’s butt because it was actually a “big Sears and Roebuck” catalogue. Also, the late 50s to early 60s were prior to the days of glossy pages, so it performed its task perfectly (in case Big Hominid is wondering).
Jeffery Hodges
You never can tell when the ability to drop a tac nuke will come in handy when you are down at the mall. If its on target that would be good too.
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