Reaction File: Rustic Types

Young men driving trucks are a tricky group to categorize. Some of them are perfectly kind and quiet. They see me and might find me a bit odd, or even a lot odd, but they tend to behave respectfully. But some of them are hicks. Hicks, it turns out, behave a lot like middle- and high- school kids in urban settings. That's not saying a lot about those kids, and it's saying even less about hicks.

This behavior is totally understandable and even predictable. Like kids in urban high schools, hicks are fairly low on the totem pole. Presumably they don't have a lot of self-confidence, and they have even less self-restraint.

What's really interesting about hicks is that they are the one group, other than drunks and other fringe members of society, who will make negative comments even when not in a group. Urban high-school kids might mumble something under their breaths as I go by, but the hick will go as far as to yell 'Faggot' or some other disparaging remark. I can only speculate that this is because unlike high schoolers, hicks know that they can kick my ass or just drive away in their gas-guzzling truck. Or both.

I'm glad that I haven't come across too many hicks.