"Here I sit high, gettin' ideas, ain't nothin' but a fool would live like this
Out all night, runnin' wild, woman sittin' home with a month old
Dang me, dang me, ought-a take a rope and hang me
High from the highest tree, woman would you weep for me?"
These immortal (or immoral) words were written by my dear friend, the late great Roger Miller, about a lazy, good for nothin', beer guzzling', absentee husband, who deserves to be "hung from the highest tree". He went on to say, " I'm the seventh of seven sons, my pappy was a pistol, I'm a son of a gun.
Well, my pappy Is still a pistol and good son of a gun.. Gatling Gun, get it? But unlike the lazy, hard drinking, alcoholic horse's rear in Roger Miller's song, My father, Marine Corp.Curley Gatlin, does not deserve to be "hung from the highest tree". You see, Corp. Gatlin went to work this morning, and just about every morning of his 84 years. He did not leave my mother at home with a "month old child"...unless he was going to work!
He worked hard, really hard, to feed my mother, my two brothers, Steve and Rudy, my sister La Donna and me. He not only worked hard, he taught us to work hard. He taught us that work was what a man does. He taught us that work is noble, that work is, in some great cosmic sense, cleansing, and that a man was pretty much a good fer nuthin' "so and so", if he wouldn't cinch up his belt and figure out a way to feed his family.
Please do not misunderstand me, I know that jobs are hard to find in America today. Well, jobs were hard find in America in 1956 too, but daddy always found one. He moved my mother and me and my new baby brother, Steve, 7 times the year Steve was born...... He moved with the drilling rig. He moved with his...job. That is what working men do, they find work.
Please do not misunderstand me, I know that jobs are hard to find in America today.
Well, jobs were hard find in America in 1956 too, but daddy always found one. He moved my mother and me and my new baby brother, Steve, 7 times the year Steve was born. He moved with the drilling rig. He moved with his...job. That is what working men do, they find work!!
But now the jobs have been spirited away under the cover of night. -- In other words, in the halls of Congress, to a place where working men cannot get to them, the black hole on the Potomac.
Thousands of hardworking people are now being deprived of the ennobling, cleansing, bill-paying, kid-feeding endeavor, called work, by a bunch of louts who don't know what work is.
DEAR GOD HOW DID IT EVER COME TO THIS?? HOPE AND CHANGE MY....Well, you know.
Only a few days after the cataclysmic event known as THE BIG SPILL, President Obama and a bunch of "touchy-feely, warm and fuzzy, kumbaya singin', tree huggin' granola eatin,' Birkenstock wearin', platitude spewing hypocrites, reflexively, "knee-jerkedly" mandated, that's right, MANDATED, that the hardworking people in the Gulf states, were either going to have resort to robbing a bank, mugging an old lady or paying their MasterCard bill with their American Express card, or be forced by the above mentioned "louts who do not know what work is," to do what no hard-working, kid feeding, bill paying, Birkenstock-hating, good son-of-a-gun wants to do... Go on the "dole," Become a ward of the state, take an unemployment check...Take money for not working.
Dear God, the mere thought of it makes me sick....and it makes me want to fight. And fight I will. I will fight those who do not have the privilege, and awesome responsibility of writing op-eds for FoxNews.com and being on “Hannity” and The O' Reilly Factor” and “America’s Nightly Scoreboard with David Asman,” those folks who don't get to stand up and sing songs about what a great country this is and how badly the Pirates of the Potomac are ____it up! I will fight for the working man.
Merle Haggard nailed it:
"Hey, hey workin' man, workin' man like me
Ain't never been on welfare, that's one place I won't be
'Cause I'll keep on working, long as my two hands are fit to use
Drink a little beer at a tavern, sing a little bit of them workin' man blues."
Attaboy HAG!! Great song, Which brings me back to Roger Miller's great song:
"Dang me, Dang me, ought-a take a rope and hang me
High from the highest tree, woman would you weep for me?"
You are probably asking,"where are you going with all of this?" Well, here it is. The "touchy-feely, warm and fuzzy pirates mentioned above...well, I reckon that hangin' 'em might be goin' a little bit too far (just barely) , but they should at the very least be whooped around the head and shoulders with an old Birkenstock for mandating the ban on drilling in the Gulf.
Yes, the spill is is horrible..Yes, some big muckety mucks *blew it.* Yes, things happened that should not have happened. This just in… It ain’t a perfect world. Deal with it!
Those who "do not know what work is" should not be allowed to put those who do know what work is, well, out of work, by reflexively, knee-jerkedly, playing god (no caps for this usage) with people's lives...especially when everybody knows that the would be "god players," do not really give a rat's rear end about the people of the Gulf... They are simply playing (god) to their political base.
I am NOT unaware of the dangers inherent in "pokin' holes in the ground ( or the sea floor) where the dinosaurs died" (technical term...drilling for oil where the geological data has determined that there is oil) I was born and reared in the oil fields of West Texas. I know what it is about and I know that sometimes things just blow up. Sometimes people get hurt. Sometimes people get killed. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, things happen.
Well, damn it, hunger happens, too. Bills happen, too. And to deprive people of making a living for fear of killing a bunch of birds, some shrimp, and some marshlands, and soiling some beaches, is total horse manure.
I am not a whacko who doesn't understand the ramifications of all of this. It's terrible. It will take years for things to get back to normal. But, summarily depriving a man of the ability to feed his family, to vouchsafe his manhood, to keep his hard earned self-respect intact, in order to appease some doofuses (it's a technical term...well, pick one) at Greenpeace, to push some self-righteous agenda down people's throats, and in so doing, take away the man's inalienable right to feed to feed his kids?
As I asked before, dear God, how did it come to this??
The shrimp will come back. The birds will come back. The marshes will come back. Jobs will not come back...if someone doesn't put a stop to this mandated madness!
I say, bring out the DOOFUS at GREENPEACE. Bring out the "don't know what work is louts" and, what the heck, bring out OUR COMMUNITY ORGANIZER- in-CHIEF...Bring out an old Birkenstock, give it to CORP. CURLEY GATLIN, and give him about 20 minutes with them. Give him permission to "tap around on them" a little bit (on occasion he tapped around on me...and look how good, or is it well, I turned out) and I guarantee you that they will think twice before they reflexively, knee-jerkedly, MANDATE AWAY THE RIGHT OF WORKING MEN...TO WORK!!
And if, after Corp. Gatlin gets through "tapping around on them," they still want to play God, by denying workin' men the right to work...Hang 'em from the highest tree!
Larry Gatlin is a songwriter/musician.
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