‘I want to see a Redneck’

   Erin wanted to go on a weekend road trip. She didn’t know exactly where but wanted to go somewhere.

I mentioned that I had family down in North Carolina and she jumped at the chance.

 “I want to see Rednecks!” She was serious. She loved everything about them. The accent, the trucks, the idea of having a rifle in the back seat. All of it.

 I always found it odd she liked boxy cars like my ’77 Chevy Nova more than the muscle car ’71 I owned, but she liked what she liked and you had to love her for it.

Jen wanted to have breakfast with me the morning I was going on my trip just because she wanted to see me.  I hung out with Jen and she drove me to meet up with Erin at Denver’s house. I wanted Jen to meet Erin and Denver had a friend named ‘Slocumb’ that he knew from school up in Albany he wanted us all to meet. The guy was weird. He would turn the color off of the TV because he thought things looked better in black and white and other weird things like that .

  Erin was running late to pick me up so we sat and hung out. When Erin finally came we had to leave right away if we were to make it to North Carolina by nightfall. Jen stayed and hung out with Denver, Matt and Slocumb for a little while. Afterwards, Jen would tell me. “… Slocumb. He would be cool… If I were a guy.” I guess he just creeped her out. The guy was too weird for even Jen, Wow. Years later he apparently died in California after he and a friend got high on drugs and drove their car off a cliff on Route 1 in California.

  Erin and I drove and bonded and had a great time. We got to my aunt and uncles that night after a brief stop to take a picture of a sign that Erin really wanted that advertised “50 Beautiful Women Wash your Car” in front of a topless bar and Car wash.

  In the morning, my Cousin Rachel drove us to Duke University to see her brother Brent.  And also drove us to an out of the way town to mail a secret admirer letter to some guy she liked that was friends with her brother. Apparently, she didn’t want the letter traced back to her. Erin was supportive of this venture. I saw no point of expressing your feeling to someone if you didn’t want them to know who you were. We also learned that both Rachel and her friend were positive they had both been abducted by aliens. They apparently both had matching marks on their hips that indicated some sort of extra -terrestrial branding or implant. My aunt actually sprung for hypno-therapy for this. Erin loved my cousin.

  That night Rachel drove us to my grandmother’s place for dinner. She had been living in her apartment all alone since my grandfather passed away three years before. She asked me if I could fix her crystal colock that was off an hour because of Daylight Savings time. She told me if I couldn’t not to worry about it because it would be the right time in a few months anyway if she’s still alive by that time. I told her that she would be, but I’ll fix it anyway.  16 years later, she is still with us.

  The next morning we headed back to New York. Overall a great trip for all!