So…Where Are You From?

I’m always interested in where people are from. Maybe it’s because it allows me to end a sentence with a preposition without fear of reprimand. After all, no one asks “From where do you hail?“

Maybe it’s a Kentucky thing. One thing you often hear in Kentucky is something like this: “He ain’t from around here. He’s from somewheres else.” Seems like we’re always asking people where they’re from–Eastern Kentucky, Western Kentucky, Northern Kentucky, etc. You might even be from Louisville, which is part of Kentucky in only the most technical, geopolitical sense.

Everyone is from somewhere. I’m sure someone famous said that at some point. I live in Lexington, Kentucky. Lexington is a college town and, as such, most of us Lexingtonians are from somewhere else. I suspect that’s true of most college towns. In fact, one of the first things you want to know when you meet someone here is “Where are you from?“

Where you are from is important. Okay, it might not be as important as where you are. How you got from where you’re from to where you are is even more important. After all, that’s your life. It’s certainly more important than where you’re going since you might never actually get there.

When I’m out of state, I’m from Lexington. For example, I was in Newberry Springs, California a few months ago and a guy named Shaggy asked where I was from. I said “Lexington, Kentucky” without hesitation. Truth be told, I’m not from Lexington. I only live there. Actually, I’m from Harlan, Kentucky. If you were familiar with Harlan, I’d never tell you I’m from Harlan, though. Harlan is a town, and I never lived there. I’m from Harlan County, a much broader designation. To a fellow Harlan Countian, I’m from Loyall. I might even specify Rio Vista or Park Hill. If you knew anything about Loyall, that would make sense.

My father was from Evarts, also in Harlan County. My Mom was born in Detroit but grew up on Island Creek and in Cumberland. So, she was from Pike and Harlan Counties.

I’ve probably met people from all 120 counties in Kentucky, which is an ungodly number of counties. By contrast, California has 58 counties. Texas, on the other hand, has 254. I’ve met very few people from either of those states.

I’ve traveled through a lot of small towns in America. They all have one thing in common. Someone is from all of them. Some folks are so well-known that the town claims them.

In Kentucky, we claim Abraham Lincoln who has born in Hodgenville. Nevertheless, Illinois is The Land of Lincoln. Honest Abe is one of those folks claimed by a lot of places. Will Rogers is like that. He’s all over Oklahoma. If you fly into Oklahoma City, you might land at the Will Rogers Airport. If not, you’ll land at Wiley Post Airport. Oddly enough, Rogers and Post died in the same plane crash but not in Oklahoma. Claremore, Oklahoma honors Rogers even though he wasn’t really from Claremore. He’s also not from Vinita, Oklahoma, which has a statue of him near what used to be the world’s largest McDonald’s.

I read an excellent essay by Ander Monson, The Exhibit Shall Be So Marked, in which he notes the generic qualities of small towns. In my travels, I’ve noticed the same thing. Small towns are small everywhere. There are scandals and gossip, good people and bad. They all have an air of folks living easy and hard. Being there because they love it and because they can’t leave. Not all small towns are friendly. Some people are friendly and some won’t give you the time of day. It’s not all Norman Rockwell.

With the exception of geography and accents, I’m not sure that you could tell the difference between Prestonsburg, Kentucky and Commerce, Oklahoma. That’s not entirely correct. The major difference is that Mickey Mantle is from Commerce. Folks in Commerce know it, too.

Brantley, Alabama, knows it’s the home of Chuck Person aka The Rifleman, former Auburn University basketball star and long time NBA player. Brantley is an otherwise quiet, nondescript town that has seen better days.

Brantley loves Chuck Person. I’m sure they love his less famous brother Wesley, too.

Brantley isn’t a lot different from Binger, Oklahoma, home of Johnny Bench. Schools, churches, stores, city hall and better times long ago.

JB’s sign needs straightening

A lot of people are from Oklahoma. Eric, Oklahoma is the home of Roger Miller. How do I know? Well, they have a Roger Miller Museum, just as Binger has its Johnny Bench Museum.

Twenty-five or so years ago, I was in Yukon, Oklahoma. Someone told me that Garth Brooks was from there. I had never heard of him. Of course, that changed. Now, no one has to tell you that Garth is from Yukon. They’ve painted it on their water tower.

Elk City, Oklahoma is notable not for elk but for a huge oil derrick in the middle of town. It’s also the home of Jimmy Webb, who wrote the MacArthur Park and bunch of other great songs.

Canonsburg, Pennsylvania doesn’t have a Perry Como Museum, but they have a Perry Como statue in a down town that could be anywhere in the country, except for the Perry Como statue. Perry doesn’t stand on Bobby Vinton Boulevard, though. That would be awkward.

Your author and Perry Como.

Canonsburg is close to Washington, Pennsylvania, home of Jerry Sandusky–no statue of him.

I’ve been to Wailuka, Hawaii on the island of Maui. Baseball player Shane Victorino is from Wailuku, but they don’t have sign or statue or museum for him–yet.

Carthage, Missouri has a beautiful courthouse. It also has both Marlin Perkins and Old West outlaw Belle Starr as natives.

Edd Roush was from Oakland, City, Indiana, through which I happened to drive when I was lost once. If you don’t know Edd Roush, don’t feel bad. He was one of baseball’s great stars in the early 20th Century. That’s why they have a park named after him.

I once spent a couple of days in Newark, Ohio, which is pronounced “Nerk” from some reason. I didn’t spend as much time there as Wayne Newton did. That’s where he’s from.

Cuba, Missouri is the City of Murals. As far as I can tell, no one is from Cuba (which can’t be literally true), but Bette Davis and Amelia Earhart visited Cuba–at least according to the murals. I’m not sure if they were together, but that seems unlikely.

Kennesaw, Georgia is a nice town. It’s best known as the town with an ordinance requiring everyone to own a gun. I didn’t have a gun when I was a there, but I was just visiting. Thankfully, I didn’t get caught. A lot of people are probably from there. And they’re packing.

You can get some good barbecue in Clinton, Oklahoma. Country singer Toby Keith is from Clinton, at least that’s what a waitress told me. Why would she lie about that? She wouldn’t.

I ate lunch in Needles, California on a 115 degree day. It was probably that hot when Charles Schulz lived there, but I don’t think he was born there. Then again, maybe he was. Snoopy’s brother Spike is from Needles, too.

What about Loyall? We have Jerry Chesnut. Jerry is a country music songwriter of some renown. He’s in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. He even has a website. It’s no wonder we named a road after him.

Other people are from Harlan County. Wallace (Wah Wah) Jones was a famed basketball star at the University of Kentucky. Legend has it that Nick Lachey was actually born in the county, but we don’t have a sign or anything for him.

Kentucky claims a few people. Muhammad Ali is from Louisville. So was Hunter Thompson, but Louisville is a big city. Lots of people are from big cities. It’s a numbers game.

Charles Manson is from Ashland, Kentucky. As far as I know, they haven’t built a museum or park in his honor. Maybe after he dies….

Jesse James wasn’t from Kentucky, but he robbed a bank here. So did Willie Sutton. Col. Sanders was a Kentuckian, but you probably knew that. He wasn’t a criminal.

Larry Flynt is a Kentucky boy, from Magoffin County. Unrelated but just as interesting, famous White House correspondent Helen Thomas was from Winchester. We also claim Johnny Depp, George Clooney, Tom Cruise, Jennifer Lawrence and Ashley Judd, so we have are fair share of beautiful people, too. Flynt and Thomas are not two of them. You probably wouldn’t guess that any of these folks were Kentuckians (except for Flynt), but they are.

Some people have a hard with identifying where they are from. Military people are a good example. They’re from all over the place. Some folks are embarrassed about their origins and will only vaguely answer with something like “Eastern Kentucky” or “back East.” If you push them, you can get the details.

Of course, accents can give you away unless you are from Kansas or Nebraska or some other accent-less land. I have an Eastern Kentucky or Appalachian accent. I knew a woman from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and found it odd that she would say “eh” of “hey” at the end of sentences. I found out that was a dead giveaway of the UP. Similarly, folks from New England speak with an odd brogue and say things like “aayuh” during casual conservation. There’s no hiding where they are from.

We’re all from somewhere, even without road signs, museums and parks in our names. I guess most of us are proud of where we’re from or, at the very least, we don’t lie about it. Taking pride in it does seem a little odd given that we really have no say in the matter. Oh well… so, where are you from?

©www.thetrivialtroll.com 2014

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My Flagging Patriotism

I make no secret that I love being an American. I’ve always been an American, and I’ve always loved my life, at least most of the time. I might also like being Swiss or a Liechtensteiner, but I’ll never know. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like being a Somalian.

Because I love being an American, I suspect that makes me patriotic. I certainly have pulled for us in all the wars. But, when I hear really patriotic people talk, I think I’m a wild-eyed anarchist. The flag–the American Flag–more than anything else makes feel like that.

Being a bit of a gadfly, I’m leery of blind loyalty to anyone or anything. Any time people speak of patriotism, I think of the famous quote that we’ll know fascism when it reaches American because it will be “wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” Some say that Sinclair Lewis said this. It certainly sounds like something he would have said.

Nothing swells Americans with pride like our flag. Old Glory. The Stars and Stripes. Unlike some countries whose flags have wild colors and sayings on them, it’s simply designed. Fifty stars and thirteen stripes. Red, white and blue. We don’t have animals or people on our flag. It’s not all busy and confusing. I’ve always like the flag, but I don’t worship it. I really liked the one the Air Force draped on my Dad’s casket. My fellow Americans, however, are obsessed with the flag.

Prior to the American Civil War, the flag wasn’t so much a symbol of patriotism as it was a marker used to identify federal territories or possessions. During the Civil War, it became a symbol of the union just as the Confederate flag was a symbol of rebellion. Since then, the flag has taken on more significance.

Nowadays, the flag is venerated. Rick Monday was a fairly good baseball player in the 1960’s and 1970’s. He was a good outfielder, hit with some power and had good speed. He’s known for two things. One, he was the very first pick in Major League Baseball’s first amateur draft. Second, he saved the flag. During a game at Dodger Stadium in 1976, Monday was playing in the outfield for the Chicago Cubs. Two “fans” ran on the field, threw down a flag and prepared to burn it. Monday ran by and scooped it up with one hand just before it was lit. He got a standing ovation. Mention Rick Monday to a baseball fan of a certain age, and he or she will remember that moment.

: Rick Monday’s greatest play.

We have songs about the flag. “Stars and Stripes Forever” and “It’s a Grand Old Flag” are two of them. My father was fond of march music, so I I’ve heard Stars and Stripes Forever many, many times. It’s pretty catchy.

We like the flag so much that we have laws about it. The Flag Acts of 1777, 1794 and 1818 tell us what the flag should look like. We have a United States Flag Code which has rules about displaying and caring for the flag. You can read it at 4 U.S.C. Section 1, et seq. (I’m a lawyer, and that’s a citation to a statute). Before you go scrambling to the United States Code to turn in your neighbor, there are no criminal penalties for breaking these rules. Think of them as rules of etiquette for the flag. Here are just a few of the rules:

Don’t dip the flag
Don’t display it upside down (except to show distress)
Don’t wad it up
Don’t make clothes out of it
Don’t draw pictures on it
Don’t walk on it
Don’t let it touch the ground
Burn it when it’s worn out

This is okay, because Mrs. Palin’s bikini is not an actual flag. It’s not okay that she’s wearing a bikini, though.

First Amendment fanatic Larry Flynt. Wearing an actual flag as a diaper is not okay, but it’s not a crime. Maybe it should be.

These are a just a few of the highlights. There are a bunch of rules. Only an anal-retentive Boy Scout could keep track of all of them. Just be glad there are no criminal penalties. By the way, I was a Boy Scout–maybe it was a Cub Scout–for a couple of weeks. What did I learn? How to fold the flag, of course.

The bottom line is that we don’t like people being disrespectful to the flag. People in foreign countries like to burn the flag–our flag. You can tell they think that infuriates us, and it does. Some of these folks will hit it with shoes. That’s definitely a no-no.

Although the flag is iconic, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution allows us to desecrate it. Like Mr. Flynt, we can wear it as a diaper if we so choose; however, I don’t suggest that, because it will make you unpopular in many circles.

Remember, though, it’s not a crime. We Kentuckians have made it a crime under state law, Kentucky Revised Statute Section 525.110. That statute is unconstitutional, of course, but we don’t care. It’s still a law, even if we can’t enforce it. We’re well-known in Kentucky for passing laws that can’t be enforced and for periodically embarking on Quixotic battles to display the Ten Commandments. It’s part of our culture.

Of course, Americans have a Pledge of Allegiance. Man oh man, the Pledge of Allegiance gets people worked up. We’re supposed to pledge allegiance to the flag, by God, or so the argument goes. No one ever explains why we should do this, but we should. Some–like your author and The United States Supreme Court–believe that Americans shouldn’t have to pledge allegiance to God, country, flags, politicians or anything else. We’re Americans. We have the right to be apathetic or downright hostile about everything.

I often see posts on social media lamenting that schools don’t recite the Pledge of Allegiance. This isn’t true. My children attended public schools where the Pledge was recited. Now, the school can’t force you to recite it. That’s okay, at least with me.

If you’re going to get all worked up about the Pledge of Allegiance, consider:

The original text of the Pledge:
- I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
It was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Christian socialist. That’s right, a socialist.
It was written as part of the 400 year celebration of Columbus’s arrival in America.
One of the purposes of it was to sell flags to schools, because there was a belief that patriotism was at a low point.
Bellamy wanted to include equality and fraternity for all, but he knew that schools wouldn’t support equal rights for women and African-Americans.
About 30 years later, “my flag” was replaced with “the flag of the United States of America.” The thought was that immigrants needed to be clear about which flag they loved.
In 1954, the now familiar “under God” was added. This was during the Cold War when godless Communism was all the rage.
A minister named George Docherty suggested to President Eisenhower that God be added to the pledge. Reverend Docherty likened the Pledge to something “Moscovite children” might recite.
Legally, you can’t be forced to recite it.
Schools can recite the Pledge, but student participation is voluntary. If you think schools are not allowed to recite the Pledge, you are wrong.
The vast majority of states require that time be set aside for recitation of the Pledge. So, if you think the country is going to hell because we don’t do it, again, you’re wrong. Here in Kentucky, we have Kentucky Revised Statute Section 158.175 which sets aside time for it.
Groups like Socialists and Fascists love to have people pledge allegiance to the state.

This being America, we don’t force anyone–even children–to pledge allegiance to the flag. Maybe you think we should, but such things as freedom of speech and of religion stand in the way. It’s okay. Those are good things, too. Think about it like this: If you’re one who thinks we should be forced to say the Pledge, imagine how you’d react if President Obama said that. See?

We’re not the only country with a flag. Other countries have flags, too. All of them do, I guess, but we don’t care much for those. Most of them are goofy looking with odd sayings and pictures on them.

Andorra has the typical weird flag combining a haughty crest with cows and odd foreign gibberish.

Some other flags just took no thought at all. France, for example:

The French flag can be easily adapted in the event of surrender.

We want people to fight for the flag, too. Personally, I wouldn’t do that, especially if I had time to think about it. I’d probably let you have the flag if it were that important to you. That’s not the same as fighting for one’s country, although I wouldn’t want to do that, either.

When we Americans get mad at foreign countries, we don’t take to the streets and burn their flags. To us, that seems over the line. Oh, we’ll invade your country, kill you by the thousands and overthrow your government, but we’ll be good to your flag. That’s only decent.

All our states have flags. Here is the flag of my state, Kentucky:

It states the fairly obvious maxim of “United we stand. Divided we fall.” I suppose the cartoon on it symbolizes country and city folk coming together. We also call ourselves a “commonwealth.” No one knows what that means, but we’re just a plain old state like everyone else. Kentucky has its own Pledge of Allegiance:

“I pledge allegiance to the Kentucky flag, and to the Sovereign State for which it stands, one Commonwealth, blessed with diversity, natural wealth, beauty, and grace from on High.“

Notice that it doesn’t mention “God.” I think people would be outraged about this if they knew we had our own pledge. “On High” could be God, Jesus, Buddha or a bundle of sticks.

I’ve been told that this is Alabama’s flag:

Weird, huh? It’s kind of like they’ve just Xed themselves out. Then again, it’s easy to draw.

State flags aren’t as controversial. I’ve never heard anyone accused of desecrating one, and I’ve never seen angry foreign mobs burning one. If someone did, we’d probably get mad, but it would quickly pass.

Everyone knows the famous photo of the flag being raised at Iwo Jima. It wouldn’t have had the same impact if they had raised the Kentucky state flag by mistake.

Some of our states are fond of the Confederate flag, the Old Stars and Bars. Only in America could you fly the flag of a rebellion that cost hundreds of thousands of lives and almost destroyed your country. Of course, a lot of folks are offended by that. That’s also very American. Do what you want, but others have a right to get pissed off about it.

Whether you’re conservative or liberal, you might be thinking: “Hey, does this nut have some kind of problem with flags?” No. I’ve never desecrated a flag (at least not on purpose). I don’t advocate such things, either, but I probably don’t love the flag. And I certainly don’t insist that you love it or pledge some kind of oath to it. Just don’t wear it as a diaper, unless you really want to.

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