<Photo of author and his father taken in 1967>

Southern Fried Christian Redneck Family

I was raised in a southern fried Christian redneck family. That statement helps explain some of the things I write and also helps you understand why you might not understand what I write.

My father was a preacher and so was his father and his father and his father and his father. So multiply that many times to the following statement. You know what they say about preacher’s kids. Funny how people understand that statement, even though I have never met anyone that knows what is really said about preacher’s kids.

Now I also grew up with the knowledge that my father survived a head on collision where he went through the windshield and then slid over 100 feet on pavement. Shattered his right arm and leg and cracked open his skull. That is a scary thing to know about your father. Because of this, you could easily tell if he was mad. His walk became even more pronounced. So when he did this fast walk through the house, it meant one of three things. Sadly my room was in the middle of the hallway and no matter the reason, he always had to pass my room. The only time that it was funny was when he was doing this walk for all three reasons. Those reasons were; he was late, he was mad or he had to get to the bathroom quick.

Because of my father I can truthfully say I was raised on Monty Python, Smother’s Brothers, Gilligan’s Island and the 1960’s Batman.

Now my father did have this really cool car. It was a 1964 Cutlass F-85. I found out recently that only 2600 were ever built and only 600 were convertibles. This car’s speedometer went all the way up to 200 MPH. This car was originally built as a police interceptor, but the police didn’t go for it. So they sold these cars to the public. Under the hood it had a 425 engine with a four barrel high compression carburetor. It is a good thing that I didn’t know this when I was a teen. Even so, I got my first speeding ticket in this car. The embarrassing part of getting that speeding ticket was that I was going 35 MPH in a 15 MPH school zone. This in a car that got clocked doing 190 MPH once down in Dallas, TX while some kids took it for a joy ride.