When I was a kid, I loved the show, Dukes of Hazzard. As I was driving to work today, I noticed a 6’ loading ramp at a local shop that repairs industrial equipment, and the first thought that came to mind was, “wow. I would love to take my car at about 60 mph and go off that sweet jump!” Then it hit me how crazy an idea it was, and I couldn’t help but wonder where it came from. After pondering this for a few minutes, it hit me that it was that show from the 70’s that put those crazy ideas in my head that have been in there for over 30 years, but still surface from time to time.
I then wondered how else that show has influenced me, and here are some key lessons:
1. In life, no matter how hopeless things seem, there is always a way out. Usually it involves a dirt road, a fast car, some loyal friends and, if you are lucky, a jump over a creek.
2. Attractive people can get away with stuff normal folks like me can’t. If you don’t believe me, ask Deputy Cletus Hogg.
3. There really are a lot of greedy, power-hungry people out there like Boss Hogg.
4. Even if you are an actor who plays a dirty, wild and crazy, red-neck mechanic named Cooter, you still probably have a future in national politics.
5. Everybody needs an Uncle Jesse in their life to bail them out of trouble every now and then.
6. Sometimes, you really need to thing creatively to solve a problem. Like attaching dynamite to arrows, and using a compound bow to launch them.
7. Don’t make a big deal about life’s little inconveniences, like having your doors welded shut.
8. A few colorful euphemisms can make an otherwise boring story or speech into something very entertaining. Here are some of my favorite sayings from the narrator, Waylon Jennings:
- “They’re hotter’n a pair of blue tick hounds on their first hunt.”
-“Them two boys was fighting like the second and third monkey on the gang-plank of Noah’s Ark!”
-“They were stickin’ out like a bourbon bottle at a country revival”
-“Ever had one of those days you couldn’t hit the ground with your hat?”
-“Stood out like a watermelon in a bowl full of chickpeas”
-“He’d meet a grizzly bear if it had a wallet”
-“He could smell the ink on a dollar like a bird dog huntin’ quail”
-“He’s slicker than a bald-tired semi on a mile of wet asphalt”
-“He was mad enough to chew nails and spit horseshoes!”
-“He was itchier than a hound dog at a flea circus”
-“When you have to sell pigs to buy pig feed, you ain't apt to be in the pig business very long.”
-“Tanglin’ with Daisy is like tryin’ to put socks on a rooster.”
-“As nervous as an alligator in a hand bag factory.”
-“Havin' more trouble than two stray hefers in a pasture full of bulls.”
-“Now from where I sit this whole thing smells like its downwind from a cow barn on a hot June day.”
-“Just about as rare as a buck-toothed rooster.:
9. At the end of the day, it’s important to be able to sit down with your sworn enemy to drink a cold one together in the boar’s nest, listening to a band play that Roscoe P. Coltrain caught in a speed trap.
