Arkansas Traveler
Everyone sensible has been quoting this excerpt from a marine letter:
Most Profound Man in Iraq – an unidentified farmer in a fairly remote area who, after being asked by Reconnaissance Marines (searching for Syrians) if he had seen any foreign fighters in the area replied “Yes, you.”
Which put me in mind of
Hey farmer! You’re not too far from a fool are you?
Just a barbed-wire fence between us.
More about the “Arkansas Traveler” legend can be found courtesy the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. If you have access to JSTOR you can go all highbrow with it.
Anyway, to pull a Paglia (blogterm: “to Silberize”), the point is, as I’ve said before, most of the world is “red states.” They just aren’t American red states.
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Comment by Glen Raphael —
October 11, 2006 @ 1:29 am
“Hey farmer! How long you lived around these parts?”
“Well…you see that old oak tree up the hill yonder?”
“Yeah?”
“That was there when I came.”
Comment by abb1 —
October 11, 2006 @ 2:40 am
Nonsense, Jim. You don’t have to be ‘from a red state’ to resent a foreign military roaming around your country. That’s universal.
Comment by ajay —
October 11, 2006 @ 6:07 am
I believe, for example, that even staunch card-carrying Communists have been known to get rather snippy about being invaded and occupied, from time to time.
Comment by Jeremy Osner —
October 11, 2006 @ 7:45 am
I learned The Arkansas Traveller from a book of fiddle tunes recently and couldn’t figure out why it seemed so familiar, until the words came floating back from my childhood — “I’m bringing home a baby bumble-bee, won’t my mommy be so proud of me, la la-la-la la la-la la-la la…. Ouch! he bit me!” etc.
Comment by Charles Dodgson —
October 11, 2006 @ 8:06 am
Hmmm… the Michelle Shocked version, I see. Next up, perhaps, the Henley exegesis of the lyrics to “God is a Real Estate Developer”?
I kid, I kid…
Comment by tylerh —
October 11, 2006 @ 4:39 pm
Two more verses Michelle missed:
AT:”Can take this road to Little Rock?”
F: “why would you want to? they already got a road in Little Rock.”
—
AT:”Have you lived hear all your life?”
F: “Not yet.”