Southern Legitimacy Statement: My mom used to tell me that’s why my eyes were brown. That’s my family’s version of a compliment. To be full of crap means you tell good stories. To tell good stories means you’re worth keeping around. I grew up about as far south as you can go before you hit water — in Laurel, Mississippi. My only neighbor growing up was a cranky old man with a pipe named Olan Knight. He was the great, great, great grandson of a civil war hero named Newt, and the legend goes, he led my hometown to be it’s own State during the Civil War.
Matthew McConaughey would go on to play him in a movie. It doesn’t matter how handsome they make him; I’m not watching a movie about my neighbors grandpa. I always thought I was born in the wrong place. It’s as if the creator of the universe dropped my piece on the floor and couldn’t remember where it belonged, so I got stuck in Jones County. If all the men in my family weren’t also bald white men with beards, I’d have reason to think there’s a picture of me on a milk carton somewhere. I spent most of my childhood days in search of meaning out in the woods or at the bottom of a Cocoa Puffs box.
It was very religious where I grew up. Preachers were like politicians and Sunday service was the campaign trail. But while my friends were doing church lock-ins, I was discovering my first true love: Blink-182. They were another kind of Holy Trinity. The first album I ever paid American money for was their ‘Take Off Your Pants And Jacket’ and I decided then to fully commit myself to a lifetime of late rent payments and poor eating habits: I was going to be a musician. And I meant it. My wife and I fell in love in a practice room and have spent the last ten years touring the country playing songs we wrote. It’s never been glamorous but it’s always been enough. Erin, Me, and our little labradoodle, Noodles, have turned just about every stone in these great United States. We’ve stumbled into the Grand Canyon — it stopped hurting once I got the foot elevated. We’ve wandered the streets of New York City. Every time we sing a song we wrote on stage, the kid I was when I was 13 gets his wings.
Over Covid, we lost our jobs as musicians and decided to buy a Sprinter Van. “You’ve always been quick to swipe that credit card,” my mom said. I’m not sure why that was easier to say than “I’m glad you chose to take your life back,” but I’ll translate on her behalf. We put every dollar we had into converting it into a home-on-wheels. I watched 100 hours of YouTube tutorials, bought saws, and shot myself in the foot with a nail gun — but we did it. We built our little runaway home and we were going to make up for all that lost time in the pandemic. We sold everything we owned — come hell or high water, we were going to get back out on that open road. And then a deer crossed the interstate on our first trip. Our Van was totaled. Life is funny, sometimes.So now this little family lives in Nashville, TN. We’re still singing songs and I’m still telling stories. Life is its most sweet when it’s unpredictable and our last 4 years have been the Wonka Factory. It all makes for a good story.
Which is how I ended up here in the first place.
It was raining the day my father told me I was ugly.
We were driving down a wet dirt road on the way to fix one of his machines. It was in one of those small towns in Mississippi—like Hot Coffee or Eastabuchie. The huge sacks of quarters piled at my feet couldn’t keep my eleven year old body from bouncing around the cab of his pickup truck like a pinball. My dad had a black basket on his lap and a small white quarter counter in his right hand bracing the wheel. His left hand would cross over his other arm to grab more quarters from one of the big open sacks. He’d shake the quarters in his hand like gambler before throwing the die on the table hoping for a hard eight. His talk radio was turned down low so my dad didn’t feel the need to shout when he felt inspired to impart wisdom on his last born.
I never understood my dad’s love of his funny job.
He’s got his name on half the air/vac machines along gas stations from south Louisiana all the way to Wayne county Mississippi.
He’d also be thrilled to tell you how many he’s got in Dothan, Alabama.
My whole childhood ran on quarters. Every time a soccer mom pulled over to vacuum her car’s floorboard, the Stricklin’s bank account would get a dollar richer. I may be the only person I’ve ever met that audibly coo’s at the sound of a tire inflating. Someone somewhere’s making money, baby. My yard growing up was littered with skeleton’s of shop vacs and run-down pickup trucks that couldn’t last another mile. If you don’t see Scotty coming down the street in Laurel, Mississippi, you’ll hear him by his jangling. That’s the song of the Quarter Man.
Any time one of his machines stopped sucking in or blowing out as designed, one of the Indian curb store owners would leave an irate voicemail on my dad’s flip phone.
“Scoit-tee! It woont blow aye-uh!” And my dad would run and jump in his truck and head to Jackson, leaving his dinner steaming on the counter. The second the angry owner saw my dad round the gas pumps with his Indiana Jones hat, it was only a matter of time before the anger subsided. The two would crack open a can of Monster energy drink and talk about the good old days of vacuum machines not breaking and teenagers pants not sagging. He’d show Sidhart a picture of his son Aaron making the winning tackle and Sidhart would show a picture of his daughter Ira at a birthday party.
“Lees-on, Scoit. Surry aboot my voice mail. Wua-tah undah the breege.”
And dad would come home waving another bag of quarters.
Somedays he would come home with horror stories.
Most of his machines were in poorer, crime-ridden parts of town and he’d have to time his visits to avoid the riff raff. I was never invited on those trips. But when he’d bring home the dead husk of one of his machines covered in bullet holes, we’d know right away it was a bad day at Scotty’s Air Vacs.
But the bad days made for better stories. After a long day in a bad town, we’d leave the TV off and just let Scotty unfurl.
“So one of the guys was holding a rifle and the other guy was holding a pistol and pointing it right at the guy’s head. And they were pointing and hollerin’. I guess they were both in a gang because there was a group of 50 people around them cheering them on. Saying ‘shoot him! Shoot him!’ And I was kneeled down getting my quarters out of the machine wondering how I was going to get out of this one. And right before that boy pulled the trigger, it started pouring down rain! And everyone started hollerin’ and running for their cars. So I just got in my truck and headed back here. I guess that’s God for ya.”
Who needed Sunday school when you lived at the Church of Scotty?
I never cared for the ride alongs but I loved seeing my dad in his element. Every stop made him look like he was running for public office. I couldn’t even imagine how someone was able to keep so many names in their head. What was it like to have infinite friends? He’s fixed more toilets across the southeast than any plumber and been invited to more Middle-Eastern birthday parties than any other Louisianan in the United States. He was a man of the people.
But that rainy day in the pick up truck was a turning point in my young life. I’d spent my entire day watching my father wrap everyone he came in contact with on his little finger. He laughed with his whole body alongside anyone in ear shot. We were winding some dirt road heading home and I was sorting all of the wonder in my mind from the day’s adventure. That was when he turned down Thacker Mountain Radio and shared the Gospel according to Scot.
“Jeremy,” he began. “You’re not a pretty boy.”
All I could do was blink at him.
And it’s not that I thought I was gorgeous that made this pill hard to swallow. I had never really thought about it. It was more like losing a job I never applied for. Imagine someone stopping you on the sidewalk and saying, “I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this, but you’d look positively dreadful in seersucker.” My dad was going out of his way to teach me something I never wanted to know.
“But that’s alright,” he continued. “You don’t have to be pretty to get ahead. You need to learn how to talk to people. And you’ll be unstoppable.”
I pulled the rear view mirror my direction and took a quick inventory: eyes as brown as Double Dutch, jawline bordering invisible. Sure, I was probably the youngest person in my generation to experience hair loss and the nose surgery I got from the four-wheeler wreck wasn’t a perfect job. But ugly?
“I don’t think I’m bad looking,” I said.
“But you’re not pretty,” my dad reminded me again.
“Okay,” I said sheepishly.
“What I’m saying,” he said setting down his quarter counter, “is that the pretty ones don’t have to work for it.” The rain pattered on the windshield of his blue pickup truck. “You have to work for it. You need to learn to listen and tell jokes. You have to actually give a damn about people and it’ll always come around to you. You don’t have to fight life—you have to charm it. Don’t ball your fist at it. Wink at it and it’ll fold in front of you.”
It was the best I’d ever felt from someone insulting me.
“So I’ll be okay,” I said, touching my bald spot.
“Trust me buddy,” my dad said. “On this issue, I’m a bit of an expert.”
And he turned up the radio and went back to rolling his quarters.
