I assumed my latest book Nature’s Rhyming Riddles was my first publication in poetry. However, digging through a box of memorabilia the other day I came across a 1976 June edition of the Wheaton Warrior school paper.

The school’s mascot “Warriors” caused concern a few years back since it might be deemed racist. But that all quieted down as it must have passed societies’ smell test.

If society would have become aware that the Wheaton Warrior’s school paper was called the “War Whoop” there might have been another uprising. But since the paper is no longer in print and the statute of limitations  has run out there should be no fear of lawsuits.

As I paged through the yellowed and tattered school paper I came across an article that featured a poem written by yours truly.

It was a tradition forty plus years ago that the Junior/Senior Prom have a guest speaker and who do you suppose was asked to give that talk in the spring of 1976? You would be correct if you said Mr. Larson the biology and life science teacher.

So that poem was a reminder of that evening long ago when I stood in front of several hundred very well dressed young men and women along with a couple dozen faculty members and spouses. The smell of corsages and boutonnieres filled the air as well as the excited chatter of teenagers enjoying possibly their first all nighter.

You are probably wondering what does one speak about on such an occasion? I too was wondering that very same thing for about a month before the speaking engagement arrived.

Even though the speech took place many years ago I remember it very well. I pretended I had a diary that I kept as a teenager and in it I described the fiasco that took place when I attended my school prom as a junior.

My brother Tom was a senior that year and he was going with the hottest cheerleader in our school. We only had one car so that meant Tom and his date would have to double with his younger sibling.

Now I the younger sibling did not have a hot date to accompany me so my Mother and my date’s Mother conspired to line us up.

My date was a classmate and a friend but there was not an inkling of romance involved whatsoever.

As I retold my prom adventure to the prom attendees that night it was well received. There was not a dry eye in the house at the conclusion they were laughing so hard. Even the faculty seemed to enjoy the tale that I told. 🙂

But a speech must not be all smiles and laughter so I ended my talk with a poem that I had carefully crafted.

The poem was designed to caution young people to live their lives so that years down the road they would be happy and successful. I titled it “I Am a Redneck”.

In 1976 a ‘Redneck’ was a person who did not follow the crowd but stood up for what he/she believed in.

I hope you enjoy the poem. 🙂

The party was going to be at Hiedelberger’s barn,

A buck for the beer, some grass and who gives a darn!

I said, “No my Dad would have a fit,”

And all my friends replied, “Red Neck!”

She missed the test and had to take it on her own,

She demanded to us that the answers be shown.

When I replied, “It’s not right if you’re caught you’ll get heck.”

She tossed her head, huffed and shot back “Red Neck!”

He was crippled and some of the boys in the class,

Ridiculed him, hid his sticks and gave him some sass.

Three of us returned his sticks and said those remarks to forget,

The boys who were harassing him screamed, “Red Necks!”

His habits they disliked, though his teaching was fine,

Some students kept complaining and giving him a bad time.

I told them to ‘cool it’ or he’d soon be a wreck,

My friends laughed and scoffed, “You Red Neck!”

I suffered those six years defending my ideals,

No one but me knows the pain that I feel.

Twenty years have come and twenty years have gone,

And I have returned to see how my friends are coming along.

The Hiedelberger barn burnt ten years ago,

I was informed by one of the guys who would know.

He was, in our high school days, one of the guys who got the beer,

And his cutting remark “Red Neck” still rings in my ear.

He had changed since I had seen him last,

He was skinny, gaunt with forlorn eyes hinting a troubled past.

The bottle bulged from beneath his coat,

And tears filled his eyes as of his ex-wife and family he spoke.

Remember the gal who was always seeking the answers to the tests?

Seems as though she got into some trouble out west.

She was never quite able to complete a task on her own,

And now she’s serving time for not honoring a loan.

The boy that was ‘bullying’ my friend with the crutch,

Drove his car through a guard rail with a force that destructs.

He too uses crutches as his legs are shattered and torn,

No more does he look on the crippled with scorn!

She was the one who criticized the job the teacher carried out.

It was mainly her loud complaints that forced the man out.

With a college degree she became employed,

But because of her critical manner her job she destroyed!

A Red Neck I was and I guess I still am,

My standards I fought for again and again.

Was it worth it to take the ridicule and hate?

All I have to do is review my friends’ fate.

The love of a family was traded for a bottle of booze,

A woman sits in jail because wrong had become impossible to refuse.

The ridicule of cripples wasn’t what it had been in the past,

And a negative, critical person ended up finishing last.

So be your own person, sing your own song.

Don’t be brainwashed by any person who happens along.

Don’t let the cry “Red Neck” dictate who you will be,

Be you, be yourself and you’ll always be free! 🙂

Until next time. 🙂