NELSON CLYDEIs It Just Me?

During a recent visit to the Florida Gulf Coast, a few things struck me as worth discussing.

If you Google the origins of the word redneck you will find it typically refers to a farmhand who didn’t wear a hat with a large enough brim to avoid getting a sunburn on his neck.

It is noteworthy how gender-specific many definitions of rednecks are. This is a logical imperative because if we’re honest, how many women have you encountered with a really bad sunburn on the back of their necks or anywhere else?

You could argue women wear longer hair than men and that would give them an unfair advantage. This is about the time someone would mention why the mullet (business in the front, party and sun protection in the back) hairdo was invented in the first place. Case closed on that point.

The only thing you might catch a woman staying in the sun too long doing would be planting seasonal color in the flowerbeds or if she is a redneck getting a sunburn on the tops of her bare feet rounding up her children for lunch before the salad dressing makes the white bread soggy on the potato chip sandwiches.

In this day and age, with the advances of the use of sunscreen, you would think we would have conquered the challenge of getting sunburned.

But walk down the beaches with a pair of polarized sunglasses and you can see the burn on the bodies of people with almost every step you take. The examples most cringe-worthy are those who attempted to apply sunblock very hastily and unevenly, with blotches all over their crisped patches of skin.

It makes you want to let them borrow your glasses so they can see for themselves that which will keep them from sleeping for the rest of the night.

But at the end of the day the only remedy for ignorance is the natural consequences it renders.

Observing people on the beach reveals a lot. Two young brothers around 11 and 8 were hanging around a good bit but not getting in the water. Toward the end of the day I noticed them diligently helping the lifeguard/beach attendant take down the umbrellas and pack up chairs for the day.

The lifeguard was a beautiful coed from one of those SEC schools, with a perfectly bronzed tan and a delightfully sweet nature. The boys were similarly bronzed with hair turning blond from lots of sun, presumably from their new temporary summer jobs.

I’d say they were a pair of the smartest young rednecks I’ve observed in a good while.