There’s a certain something about certain iconic songs that make them stick to certain events of my life in a way that hearing the song evokes memories otherwise abandoned.
Within minutes of hearing that Hank Williams Jr., was coming to Ebro March 9, a line from “A Country Boy Can Survive” was flowing through my brain: “I got a shotgun, rifle and a four-wheel drive, and a country boy can survive.”
I’m not enamored with country music, but that song has a place in my history, and I like it.
I know I’m not alone in associating certain songs with certain events, and Mark Hess of Hess Entertainment agrees, so he’s given us some preferred-section tickets to give away. You can enter two ways. One is to go online to newsherald.com, find this column and leave a comment on it about your favorite Hank Williams Jr. song and what memory you associate it with, or go to The News Herald’s Facebook page and look for this column and leave a comment there.
We’ll pick some winners and they’ll get to see a great show.
In the meantime, here’s my long-buried memory of hearing “A Country Boy Can Survive” for the first time.
It was the fall of 1986 and I had only been here three years. I was covering crime for The News Herald and still battling the culture shock of moving from a north Atlanta suburb to Panama City.
We didn’t grow up with guns and hunting and pickup trucks, so I didn’t have much of a grasp on some of those things that were a fundamental part of the culture here.
I have no memory how this trip evolved, but I ended up deep in the woods somewhere off State 20 in Apalachicola National Forest with a group of police officers I’d gotten to know through work who were taking me on my first hunting trip. The thought of getting in a rickety stand was a welcome relief from the flood of horrible music I endured during the trip over, as they were all country music fans.
But I had to admit I really liked “A Country Boy Can Survive.” At the time I didn’t get that it was one of the South’s anthems, a tribute to people who work hard, play hard, hunt hard and don’t have a lot of time for foolishness. I just liked it, and I liked that line about having a “shotgun, rifle and a four-wheel drive,” because for the first time I was in the company of all three.
So the song was kind of stuck in my head as my friends dropped me off and pointed me toward my tree. Having no idea at the time that a rifle makes for better deer hunting than a shotgun, and my friends such as Ricky Carleton and Jimmy Nolan not being inclined to clue me in, I settled into my spot with a newly purchased Remington 870 12-guage pump shotgun loaded with slugs.
After about two hours, I saw movement. The adrenaline flowed, the quarry moved closer, the shotgun was raised and the safety was released.
I fired and missed. Dejected, I made my way back to camp but was rejuvenated when I managed to shoot a squirrel, which I thought was a major accomplishment.
My friends arrived, excited for me.
“What happened?” someone asked. “What did you shoot at? Was that you shooting both times? Did you get it?”
“It was a big rabbit!” I gushed. “It was really close and I don’t know what happened, I just missed!”
That moment may be the one where the term “crickets chirping” was born, because the silence and dumbfounded looks that followed let me know I had done something wrong.
“You shot at a rabbit?” I remember Carleton asking. “A rabbit?”
“Yeah, but it got away,” I continued, adding, “but I got the squirrel.”
Crickets.
“You shot a squirrel with a slug?” Carleton asked.
I didn’t hunt again for more than 10 years, but the song stuck with me just like the friends, and that’s why I just might mosey on up to Ebro March 9 to see in person the performer whose song has a home in my head whether I like it or not.
Mike Cazalas is editor of The News Herald. Contact him at mmcazalas@pcnh.com or 850-747-5094.