Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Everybody Laughs at the Redneck Until the Flood Comes












I can't recall the WaPo doing this sort of thing before, but today it celebrated the virtues of rural blue collar men - you know, the pickup-truck-and-bass-boat crowd. The occasion was the water rescue work being done by rednecks Agro-Americans country gentlemen in the flooded city of Houston.

Read it here: In crises such as Harvey, you want outdoorsmen on your side:
The country is suddenly grateful for this “Cajun Navy,” for their know-how, for the fact that they can read a submerged log in the water, and haul their boats over tree stumps and levees and launch them from freeway junctions. There are no regulators to check their fishing licenses or whether they have a fire extinguisher and life preservers on board, which they don’t … Spending hours in monsoon rains doesn’t bother them, because they know ducks don’t just show up on a plate, and they’ve learned what most of us haven’t, that dry comfort is not the only thing worth seeking ... You can’t help but be struck by just how much they know how to do — and how much your citified self doesn’t. Trim a rocking boat, tie a secure knot, navigate the corduroying displaced water, and interpret the faint dull colors in the mist-heavy clouds.

Wow, that is like lyric poetry.

10 comments:

James said...

Pay wall.
But...."tie a secure knot, navigate the corduroying displaced water,"
Well secure knots are preferable to non secure, otherwise it's a little pointless. Corduroying displaced water. Well I've been wild water at night, but I've never seen corduroy water or denim or khaki water, but a writer gotta write.

Anonymous said...

TSB!! Yeah for the Fisherman Army!! gwb

Anonymous said...

TSB: https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/csz/news/800/2017/3-antidepressa.jpg Can't wait to see what they find in those Houston Bass. gwb

Anonymous said...

TSB: Bitcoin Surge To New Record Highs Above $4800 Amid Renewed ETF Hope. ...
I told myself when my $350 buyin of BC at $220 got to $5000 I'd quit my day job. That could happen this weekend. gwb (After 4 years everyone is pretty much sick of me anyway.)

TSB said...

GWB: Someone somewhere is always predicting that this will be the year Bitcoin takes off. I guess it could happen. Stray though: do they accept Bitcoin at Burning Man? The camp sites are pretty pricey, I hear.

Anonymous said...

TSB: I don't plan to spend it at all. Or buy anymore. And when the US decides to raise confiscatory taxes on it I'm going to transfer it to an off-line wallet like Max Keiser did before the Mt Gox disaster. He's a bitcoin billionaire now and he's going to wait until it's accepted as regular currency. gwb Plus, I don't like snakes or tatoos.

TSB said...

They have snakes out in the desert at Burning Man? It seems unpleasant even without that, but I'm still tempted. It started at Baker Beach in San Francisco right next to my old quarters at the Presidio, and I regret missing it in those days.

Anonymous said...

TSB: You would be great at the Burning Man with some great "Presidio Art" and Poetry. gwb

Anonymous said...

TSB: FM suggests that with the Navy pivoting away from SE Asia this proposed buyout of Lattice Semiconductor by the Chinese might be a clue that Trump has chosen to cozy up to the Chi-Coms in an effort to get their help with N Korea.
Trump to decide whether to block China-backed buyout of US chip maker.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/02/trump-to-decide-whether-to-block-china-backed-buyout-of-us-chip-maker.html If so it would be the first time a US President went against the advice of the technology advisory board. He also thinks the Chinese may have hacked our own advanced mine technology back in 2014. No more
"Powerful Armadas Steaming Toward N. Korea" gwb

TSB said...

I'd skip Burning Man for a good look at the new Presidio. It was an Army base when I was there in the early-mid 1980s, but an extremely laid-back one. A cross between MASH and Animal House, in the words of an old comrade. Since then it's been donated to the city as a great park space, so, if we have not exactly beaten our swords into plowshares, we have at least converted them into candle shops and vegan restaurants. The place brings out the inner hippie in me.