it is friday!! time once again for the top five friday! make sure you head over to katie’s and read hers as well! 🙂
today i will be in my beloved home town visiting my dad before he goes turkey hunting for the weekend so i thought i would share a little about where i come from and what i love about it!
one
it is t-i-n-y. well tiny to me. according to the city website, the population is about 5,600 people. this is of course way bigger than a lot of the tiny towns in the delta of louisiana, whose populations long to reach the 200 mark. but compared to west monroe, with a population of roughly 13,000, it screams mayberry to me! 🙂 all of the school districts are on one campus. you can walk from the elementary school to the high school (which we did many times when i was in the fifth grade and we were finally allowed to go to the pep rallies!) there are three intersections that require red lights. in order to get anywhere you have to travel down white oak road. everyone gathers at the circle w for breakfast on saturday mornings to discuss the latest football game and the local gossip. every friday without fail, my grandparents, when still living, could be found there having the catfish lunch. i hated its size when i lived there, but now i can’t wait to move home and be surrounded by its coziness. 🙂
two
one! we are the roughnecks!
two! we cannot hear you!
three! a little louder!
more.. more.. more.. more..
{work with me people – it is a football cheer! chant it with me!}
i see the confused look in your faces. what on earth is a roughneck? what kind of mascot is a roughneck? yes yes, i am used to getting this question. so allow me to explain…
for the love of all things holy do not google image “roughneck” unless you want the wrong idea of the kind of town i am from.
literally speaking, a roughneck is someone who works long, hard, manually laborious hours in the hot sun, mostly likely relating to oil field work. seeing as how the city was founded by hardworking roughnecks and that the school’s livelyhood was funded for many (think about 200) years by the black gold under its foundation, it is only fitting that our mascot be a large, sweaty man with a hard hat and greasy smears on his face and weilding a large wrench.
don’t you want to go up against us on a football field? 🙂
yes that is me and yes if i knew how to photoshop me out of it i would.
this we stole out of an old building they demolished my senior year. it lived on my backporch for a long time where my friends and i payed homage to him by way of lots of beer and laughter. and then he kind of disappeared one day. he showed up one day randomly at my brother’s wedding shower. he was hiding in a closet of a place-you-rent-for-big-parties that is owned by one of my dad’s friends. it was a little freaky. so of course i had to hug him and take a picture. many memories are associated with that fella.
three
legacy. if you were to meander through the journalism department and peruse yearbooks from the late 60s and early 70s, you would find my dad, his three brothers, my mom, one of my aunts and the parents of many of my friends. in a class of 87, 54 of us were deemed “thirteen year roughnecks”. we got a special pin. we attended school there from kindergarten thru graduation. most of our parents (and in some cases grandparents) had also been thirteen year roughnecks.
being a roughneck means little more than being a cardinal from sabine or a eagle from tatum. being a roughneck means you are tough. you know how to work really hard for the things you want. you aren’t afraid to break a sweat and get dirty. being a roughneck means you hold your head a little higher and square your shoulders. it means knowing every single person in your graduating class by name. it means you are dedicated to seeing something through. it means that even after you lose an important game you still walk off the field or court carrying that pride in your stature because you are still a hard-working roughneck regardless of the scoreboard.
the legacy of “being a roughneck” will always be in my blood. i long to move home and raise my children there because it just seems right.
{think maybe i have a little pride in where i am from? geez.}
four
volleyball. i was a member of the 1999 ladyneck volleyball team. we went to state my senior year. it was the first time the white oak volleyball team had been to state. and up until last year we had been the furthest. we lost in the final game.
last year the ladynecks won state for the first time in school history. i watched it on the internet and cried my eyeballs out.
i still love volleyball. i love to watch it and play it. i miss being on an organized volleyball team.
hang on while i get a kleenex.
{sniff, sniff}
okay – moving on.
five
home. white oak will always be home to me. it wasn’t until i met my husband that i learned some people don’t really hold a town in their heart as home. he was born in arkansas and moved several times over the course of his childhood. he refers to himself as a mutt and doesn’t claim any ties to any of the cities he lived in growing up.
i, however, am from white oak. it is where i was born, where my roots are, where i want to plant my children, and where i want to lay my weary bones when i die.
do you have a home town? do you live there? do you want to?
It sounds like being a rouchneck is a good thing! I always wanted to live in a town like that growing up. I live in the city, but I have country in my blood. I wanted to live in a town where there was lots of land, everyone knew everyone, and there were town get together's. Okay, I think you get the point.
Yay for knowing someone who play's volleyball! I used to play too. I miss it so much!
Have fun visitng your dad!
That sounds exactally like my home town!