l33t / gyaru-moji

Several months ago, I read the book, The Scots-Irish in the Hills of Tennessee by Billy Kennedy, which I picked up from a Scottish Tartans museum gift shop, if I remember correctly (my memory being about as accurate as the details in the book). The book reminded me that our species has the knack of seeing what it wants to see and recording what it wants to remember.

Yesterday afternoon, I wandered the streets of a small Tennessee village, eating Sunday brunch at the McKinney restaurant in Hales Springs Inn with my wife and mother in-law, later gawking at and buying from the vendors' booths of the Heritage Days festival.

I stood with my 92-year young mother in-law, both of us leaning against a lamppost, and watched the people walking past. Across the street, a man wearing a plastic hood, leather apron and thick oil-stained gloves stirred corn seeds in a big metal pot to make kettle corn. Next to me, a young man and his family sold wooden swords and wooden shields for kids to play knights with. My wife and a former secondary schoolmate of hers visited with hometown friends further down the road. I pulled out my pocket moleskine and wrote notes, describing to myself views of the passersby...

The people occupying the roads and sidewalks represent a portion of the species to which I belong. Their history is my history, in whole and in part. Some came here of their own volition. Some were born in the area. Some are descendants of those who were brought unwillingly. Their clothing styles: denim blue jeans, T-shirts, ballcaps, all covered with familiar sports logos; "Sunday best," 'go to church' suits and dresses; goth; biker; independent; camo; Kenyan; cowboy; square/country dance; Halloween. Herb shop sellers. Woodworkers. Quiltmakers.

I know these people, having grown up them or those like them in my childhood. They rest assured in the conviction their local ways of living are right. They may or may not travel much farther than the grocery market or nearby villages. They represent the majority of our species, content with the life they inherited from their parents and other adult caretakers. They speak a language and dialect understood by a small population.

Exclusivity is elitist by nature, despite calls for inclusiveness. Rare is the person who speaks all languages, all dialects, all jargon, with complete understanding and openness.

My goal is still getting our species on other planetary bodies while giving us room to enjoy and celebrate our subcultures.

A week ago my wife and I drove through the mountains of north Georgia and north Alabama. In the middle of nowhere, we crossed the border between the states and stopped for a petrol fillup. Inside the store, the shopkeeper read an Indian newspaper and sold drinks/snacks to hungry travelers. On the outside, the store looked like any other store in the world, advertising beer, soda, and cigarettes. Inside, the Caucasian driver of a jacked-up, camo-painted pickup truck, wearing worn overalls and a ballcap with the number of his favorite NASCAR driver, stood in the store with me, a retired engineering manager, international business consultant and technical institute instructor, and spoke to the Indian shopkeeper, three subcultures easily mixing and engaging one another in the arena of commerce.

Our subcultures rain down on this planet and drown the earth with our desires, dreams, habitual practices and beliefs. We may hold up the names of individuals like gods, preserving their words and images for posterity, but we are mainly composed of those whose voices are forgotten within two generations. How many lost voices equal the words of one we praise? A rhetorical question. Every one of us is important, a concept we forget when we make celebrities and demigods out of other people.