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Militant Ignorance

My family has always been puzzling to me. Even as a child, I couldn’t understand why they weren’t concerned with ANSWERS and TRUTH. I know it’s a Scorpio obsession to always want to know the Truth no matter what, but my family is the poster child for the term “militantly ignorant”.

They pride themselves on the fact that they know little and plan to keep it that way. As I was pondering this the other day, I started coming up with slogans for them:

“Avoiding knowledge since 1953!”
“We don’t know how to spell and we’re damn glad of it!”
“We learn all we need to know from Fox News!”
“Directions are for pussies. Just make shit up like we do!”
“We can’t pronounce more than 2 syllables! Any more than that is a waste of time anyway!”
“We won’t leave East Tennessee because pollution and cancer are government hoaxes!”
“College is stupid. We don’t know nothin’ and we turned out OK!”

My mind raced with the possibilities. I know it’s mean, but goddam it’s TRUE.

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Family Psychology

These stories have been kicking around in my head for a week, so I guess it’s time to write them. People often see me as a know it all or arrogant or bossy or a dozen other things. I don’t deny any of it, but I do have evidence of how I became this way. There are a couple of incidents that stuck with me from my childhood which explain much of why I come across like I do.

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Give it to me, baby!

When I was in high school, back in the 80s, we didn’t have guns at school or any of that shit. I’m from Tennessee, so YAH, we had guns, but we had sense enough to leave them at home. The big deal at school was wearing mini skirts and dipping Skoal – typically it was skirts for the girls and Skoal for the boys, but you know there were probably exceptions, what with it being Tennessee and all… We also didn’t have ATMs, computers, cell phones, CDs or hardly any technology that is around today. Oh, and we had the REAL MTV, that played MUSIC.

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Nurture

It’s hard for people to understand me, I get that. Maybe this post will help. I’ve modified it a bit [edited 2015], but the message is the same.

My family totally ignores me, my opinions, my life. They have always ignored how I felt and what I said as well as demean my opinions as silly. This is where my “attitude” and my tenacity about my opinions comes from.

My parents told me a lot of bullshit when I was small. I’d ask a question and they’d give me some folklore crap as the answer and I’d believe them. Then I’d turn around and tell someone else this crap and get laughed at. Scorpios do not like to be laughed at. Especially Scorpio children. So I suffered quite a bit at the hands of my ignorant family. Here’s one example of how my lovely family treated me:

When I was in first grade (at the age of 7 because my mother couldn’t be bothered to enroll me “early” due to my November birthday), I had a “Yankee” teacher from Indianapolis. She had an accent, naturally, so I picked up on it. My family was at KFC and I said the word slaw. I pronounced it with the midwest accent, so it was “slah”. My father ridiculed me for this right there in front of everyone working the counter and made me repeat after him as he said it the Tennessee way: slaaaaw. I remember feeling so stupid and so angry that he’d treat me that way. He treated me like I was an idiot because I simply used the accent that I was hearing all day at school. This was (and is) how my family treats children – or anyone different from them. Everyone else has an accent, but NOT THEM. I love to point out that everyone has an accent, period. They tell me I’m stupid. ::sigh::

This led me to become extremely militant about looking up answers for myself and NOT believing anything I’m told without some sort of proof. I’m still this way. I am accused often of having a ‘know it all’ attitude, but I really truly do not, I’m just not going to believe anything unless it can be backed up with some sort of facts. I’m also perceived as a very obstinate, opinionated person who won’t change my mind EVER. That is also totally incorrect. I will change my mind. No one believes this, but I will and I have on numerous occasions. I also DO hear what is said to me. It may not appear that I do, but believe me, I hear and I REMEMBER. I have an almost photographic memory.

The thing is, that this issue is a hot button for me. When I am challenged, I usually fall right into that family-caused reaction: DEFENSE. I really truly try not to do this, but it happens all the time.

This [conversation I had that triggered this post] was a light bulb moment for me because I finally felt the intellectual part of me and the visceral part of me connect. Intellectually, I’ve known that I do this, but emotionally I couldn’t stop it. Now I feel that perhaps I can nip my reaction in the bud before I act like an asshole. My emotions have finally caught up with my intellect – at least for this one thing.

Considering the other gazillion character flaws that need to be addressed, hell, I’ll take every little bit of growth I can get! Of course I know I’ll fuck up and wear the asshat again, but hopefully, it’ll be a while – and it’ll be for some other issue other than my “I’m Not An Idiot Just Because My Family Says I Am” issue. :-)

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TN Valley Fair ca. 1983

I think it was 1983, but it could have been ’82. I was dating this guy named Tim, who was my manager at the Quincy’s where I slaved away for minimum wage.

We were an odd couple, as most of my affairs are, with him being very sweet and me being the firecracker that I was back then. This was even before the red hair, remember! I drove my fabulous fuel injected 1979 VW Bug, convertible
79-VW_Beetle-DV-09-RMM-02
and I went to High School and I worked nights at Quincy’s and generally hung out with older people who taught me how to party!

Anyway, Tim and I went to the Tennessee Valley Fair that fall. It was still warm and the fair was as big and fun as ever.

I’ve always loved fairs, carnivals, Six Flags, whatever. I don’t go to them much any more, but I used to go to the Fair every year when I lived in Knoxville. So, in that vein, I drug Tim to the Fair at the huge fairgrounds in East Knoxville.

We go around, playing the rigged games and riding the tamer rides like the Haunted Mansion and the Ferris Wheel and the Tilt a Whirl. They’d already stopped having the hella fun Double Ferris Wheel (that I learned was called the Sky Wheel) but there were still some cool rides that you don’t see any more.

Tim wasn’t the most adventurous type and he really didn’t care for scary rides like the Zipper or the RoundUp or or the various roller coasters. Well, I saw this ride that looked fairly tame, sort of like a ferris wheel, but with little cars for 2 passengers each that could spin on their own while they go around on the big wheel. (I’ve since tracked it down and it’s called the Skydiver. It’s a specialty ride that is not in service any more, but lemme tell ya, IT’S FUN! Here’s a pic and description.) We go up and get into the small car and they lock us in. There are small metal wheels in front of us that look like steering wheels, but are actually SPINNING wheels. Once you got the car to rock, you could yank on these wheels to make the car start to spin on its axis – while you go round and round the Ferris wheel!

When I realized that our disparate weights would make that car spin like a dervish, I started yanking the hell out of the wheel to make it spin more. Tim was good with this until the whole thing started to go round. So, here we are spinning like mad as well as going round. Then it happened: Tim starts to scream like a little girl!! Well, being the evil girl that I am, I began to laugh my ass off and spin the damn thing faster. I was yelling FASTER! at the operator every time we went by and he really cranked it up. That fucker was FLYING! So I was yelling FASTER! and Tim was yelling STOP! STOP! every time we passed the operator!

God I’ve never laughed so hard in my life (while straight, anyway). I was sobbing with laughter as we spun around in our car and whizzed around the Ferris wheel. I was cackling with glee and Tim was bellowing like a lost calf! It was truly a highlight of my youth.

The operator finally had to slow us down and start letting people off the ride and when we had to get off the ride, I thanked the operator profusely as Tim stomped away embarrassed. My face hurt the next day and my throat was sore from all the laughter. Now, that is what I call FUN!

I’d like to publicly thank Tim, who is a really nice guy and after getting calmed down, he was a good sport about my torturing him and I’ve never forgotten the fun of that night.

Thanks, Tim. You were a part of a very good memory. (7.18.23: I just found out that Tim died in Feb this year. RIP Tim!)