Gee Barack, I wish you’d checked with me before you let slip that the small towns of America are chock-a-block with bitter gun fanatics nursing their wounded pride with a thick salve of religion and xenophobia.
Because I’d have cautioned against saying that.
Not that it isn’t true. Of course it’s true—you left out “mean,” by the way. But so what? The sharpest insults are usually true. Truth is a defense in libel, not a strategy in politics. Not that you planned this. Obviously, it was an off-the-cuff remark, because it’s plain that unhappy small-town people are certain to respond negatively to a mirror being held up to themselves, particularly a mirror in the hands of a city-slick college fellah in a necktie.
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Pat Hickey says:
In 1975, as a baby teacher, I was invited to go duck hunting in Custer Park along the mighty Kankakee. Custer Park is small - smaller than Oprah's donations to Leo High School.
Anyway, I shot a duck and the bird plunged onto property on the north side of Rt 113.
I crossed the road and climbed a limestone wall - placing my Remington safely in the hands of outdoorsman and colleague Charlie Olson beforehand. Holding my dead duck was a long-shanked resident in bib Dickies and Red Man 'Backy Cap.
'Duck's 'N My Land!'
'I shot the duck and it fell, here.'
'Too bad, Sonny, but we'll settle this Country Style!'
'Fair Enough, Rustic Gent, How so?'
"I kick you in the Goobers and if'n you don't throw up ; You get fair play at mine! I go first my Land. Man who tooses his giblets loses the duck.'
Ruben Yeoman took a start back and put one up through my inverted goal-posts like George Blanda with a hangover. I coughed, wretched and popped my Manhood down from my Adams Apple. 'Now, Knave - an Urban, Loyola Man with Justice on his side will win fair feathered fare' and I pulled back to get a running start at this Villain's Grapes of Wrath . . .
'The Duck's Your's!'
How do you mean - Mean?