AIN’T THAT A KICK IN THE TEETH?

Comes once again the third week of April, and we all know what that means, don’t we? Yep, time once again for clans from all over the nation to converge on the sleepy little town of Pikeville, the capital of “the hillbilly nation”, at least for this week, as we once again celebrate “Hillbilly Days”, the brainchild of “Dirty Ear” Howard Stratton and “Shady” Grady Kinney. These two extraordinary gentlemen, BTW, have each assured themselves of an exalted place in Hillbilly Heaven because, after all, there is no finer example of how to put on a fun celebration and at the same time do something wonderful for such a deserving cause as raising money for the Shriner’s Children’s Hospital in Lexington.

In fact, the cause is so deserving that most of us are comfortable with the one word that, if used in the wrong tone by an outsider, could cause that outsider to get his head bone cracked. Well, hillbilly is like an older insult used by the British at the outset of the Revolutionary War. You remember their little song “Yankee Doodle”? From the lyrics, it is obvious that the subject of the song was thought to be, as our forefathers might have phrased it “addlepated”. But like the practical souls that they were, our forefathers co-opted this song, and the moniker “Yankee”, and redefined it, so that now, instead of meaning a weak-minded individual, it means one who is innovative, is practical, and able to think on his feet. That does, however, depend on who does the defining, as the word has undergone a few revisions in the meanwhile. While to the rest of the world, a Yankee is any American, in the good, ol’ U. S. of A., to a Southerner, a Yankee is something else, altogether. But we will not get bogged down in semantics, and we will go with the original re-definition, as, after all, we are all Americans, aren’t we?

Like the word Yankee that was meant as an epithet (a fifty cent word that means “insult”), the term hillbilly was also meant that way. You can search for its origin online, and you will find that the word was first used in a by-now, hopefully anyways, defunct New York newspaper, the New York Journal, which reported on April 23rd , 1900 that "a Hill-Billie is a free and untrammelled white citizen of Alabama, who lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires off his revolver as the fancy takes him." From this humble beginning, the word quickly entered our language, and has managed to have several, often contradictory, meanings. It has been used in a comical sense, and, many say, at the same time, in an insulting manner whenever the outside world created any fictional character described as a hillbilly. And you shouldn’t have to strain yer brain to remember where this was the case. Off the top of my head, I can think of the Clampetts, Lum and Abner, Snuffy Smith, the Darlings (from Andy Griffith, of all people), and so on, and so on. If these characters were seen as simpletons, at the same time, many had off-setting, redeeming qualities, even if you had to search to find them. All of which may have made them, if not tolerable, at least less objectionable, to those of us who constitute the real hillbillies.

Like those forefathers of ours, the real hillbillies have strived to co-opt the insult by the author of the story in the New York Journal, but with only varying degrees of success. If you want to see where this attempt has paid off, you need look no further than our own little celebration. We have people from all over who come in faithfully year after year for the most altruistic of reasons. And in celebrating who we are, we manage it for the most part without trespassing too deeply into pejorative (another fifty-cent word that means “insulting”) territory. We come to listen to music, which can mean anything from Bluegrass to what Perfesser Larry Webster terms as “old-time music”, to more modern versions of this music, commonly referred to as “country and western”, or even to some classic rock, as done by a local Judge, and some of his cohorts. And we eat, and sight-see, and generally just have a good time.

But that does not mean that the celebration does not have its moments where the worst of the stereotypical hillbilly is put on display. Take the matter of what is referred to by several names-Billy Bob teeth, hillbilly teeth, and so on. Go around the town during Hillbilly Days, and you will find several places where you can buy what looks to be discount dentures. If you do see this at any booth, BTW, do us all a favor and boycott it.

What this little gem does is make the wearer look, presumably, more like what a hillbilly is thought to look like, someone with appallingly bad choppers. If it is insulting, perhaps that is because it does hit close to home. Yes, those of us from this area do not have the best teeth in the country. But it is because all of us haven’t always had access to a dentist for whatever reason. And the implication with this insulting joke is that we are who we are because that is the way we want it. And nothing could be further from the truth.

But the real topper is this: Those Billy Bob teeth? This year some have been recalled. Yep, seems like not only are we being insulted by this cretinous invention in the manner already described, but now they are being manufactured in China, where, no doubt, a whole new batch of hillbilly jokes are being born. And to add insult to injury, the Chinese used the same paint on these teeth that they did on Mattel’s toy line, that is, paint that contains lead. And in that, there may be some poetic justice. If you, by accident, get yerself a set of hillbilly teeth with this paint, the lead paint may, in fact, make you into the very stereotype of the people you meant to portray, only permanently, as lead, like all heavy metal, tend to make you stupid.

So that this shouldn’t happen, this year, take my word for, it. Stay away from the Billy Bob teeth. Oh, yeah. And have yerself a good ol’ time!