Five Ways My Family Reminds Me I’ve Forgotten My Country Roots

I recently visited my rural hometown, and within seconds of stepping foot on the old stomping grounds, I was reminded of how much I’ve neglected my roots. Perhaps this fact wouldn’t have been so glaringly apparent if not for my family members constantly reminding me that I am no longer the country girl I once was.

Alas, these people I love have no qualms hinting at this fact and teasingly calling me a city slicker (basically the worst insult on the planet for those who grew up in the countryside).

Here are just a few times I was reminded that I am no longer a country girl.

My kids don’t know how to climb through barbed wire.

In all honesty, who wants their little darlings scaling rusty barbs of wire in the middle of a farmer’s field anyway? Although, I guess it would be handy if you were in a running-for-your-life scenario.

Still, seeing as how we currently live roughly 20 km in any direction from even a single fence of barbed wire, I simply think my kids’ time might be better spent learning more relevant life skills. Like how to make sure you were given the correct change at that shady local corner store or learning how to safely communicate with the winos downtown in a respectful yet confident manner.

Either way, as my brother and I traversed across Dad’s fields, all the kids in tow, and my children became petrified with fear upon learning they would have to step through a barbed wire fence, my bro gave me the sort of pitiful look that bore deep into my hayseed soul.

I don’t pee outdoors.

Well, excuuuuse me for not wanting to pop a squat in a thicket and risk having crickets leap up into my hoo-haw.

I once watched a reality TV show where a gigantic beetle burrowed into some dude’s ear, and the mental trauma of this incident completely broke him. He started doing this high-pitched scream over and over again.

He couldn’t speak to let people know what was wrong.

He couldn’t even do some sign language to get his point across.

He just sat there screaming and staring off into space. Trauma, I tell you, can do some cray things to a person.

That would be me if I found a cricket in my vagina.

There I’d be crying this unnerving monotoned yell, “Ahhhhhh. Ahhhhhh. Ahhhhhh.” Shifting my eyes ever so slightly down to my crotchal area, desperately trying to tell someone, anyone, that a cricket had set up camp in the not-so-secret crevice that is my lady flower.

I’ve forgotten the lyrics to most Johnny Horton songs.

Like, not The Battle of New Orleans. Obviously. Nobody could forget that crazy tale.

But honestly, if someone Spotified Johnny Horton’s greatest hits, I’d only be able to sing two of them entirely through.

This may not sound strange to everyday urban folks, but where I come from, Johnny Horton was king. Dad had my bro and me singing those tunes loud and proud from the time we were knee-high to a grasshopper. We would make choreographed dances and jig along to the music like it was the coolest thing going.

Meanwhile, I didn’t learn about Backstreet Boys until a year after they became popular because I was too damn busy belting North to Alaska with all the vigour I could summon.

We were all sitting around the campfire this past visit home, and my sister-in-law pulled out her guitar and started strumming a familiar tune. She said, “Okay, Linds, this is all you!”

At first, I was dumbfounded because I had no clue what she was playing. Then it occurred to me that she was offering up a Horton song to bust out to, and I had to fake my way through the thing because I had utterly forgotten every single word. I couldn’t even name the damn song title.

Oh, how I have forsaken my honky-tonk origins.

We took Lars and Sophie fishing for the first time last week.

This, I admit, was a “my bad” situation. There are fishing holes throughout our city. There have been numerous times we’ve been sitting around one Sunday afternoon not doing much of anything, and we could have easily packed the kiddos up, got them some rods and took them down to the river.

We never did.

So this past trip home, the entire fam heaped into my brother’s truck — reminiscent of the way clowns pile into those tiny cars in the circus — fishing gear in hand, and traveled down to the river on my Dad’s property.

Luckily here in Alberta, children under the age of 16 don’t require a fishing licence (for sport-fishing), so the kids were able to cast to their heart’s content.

Soph lost interest about two minutes in and found watching the beavers lazily cut through the water far more interesting. Lars, however, was enthralled. We couldn’t pull the kid away.

Author’s photo

It reminded me of when I caught my first (and only) fish in that same river at that exact spot by the weir. I screamed bloody murder when my uncle told me I had to pull the hook out myself. I then started crying and ran away very, very fast.

Actually, on second thought, I don’t know why anyone was surprised that my kids had never been fishing before. Fishing is disgusting.

I forgot how crafty cows could be.

Dad has a large pond separating his yard. We spend most of our time on the side closest to the house, where the fire pit is. We sat around the campfire, looking up at a night sky filled with all of the constellations that I don’t get to enjoy in the light-polluted confines of the city.

On the other side of the pond are the cows. The cows are there to keep the grass down, and they do a pretty good job.

I had forgotten, however, that cows can be weirdly social. Often, if they notice unfamiliar voices in the distance, they are apt to investigate.

“Mom!!!” Sophie screamed, backing away slowly from the firepit area and towards the house.

“What? I’m trying to get the camper set up for us,” I yelled back, annoyed.

“But…are Papa’s cows supposed to be over on this side of the yard?”

That’s when I moseyed down to where she was standing on the other side of the house and found two heifers and the bull just standing there staring me right in the eyeballs.

“Holy macaroni sticks, Batman!” I screamed because country girl or not; cows have always wigged the bejeezus out of me.

“Dad! Your cows have escaped!”

Dad just laughed, hopped on his quad and herded them back over to the proper side of the pond.

He then proceeded to scold his cows by saying, “When I tell you girls to stay over here, I mean it! That means you too, Bull!” Because obviously, speaking English to the cows is very effective.

But I shouldn’t make fun, because let me tell you, those cows love my dad.

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Going home is sometimes weird because I’m a vastly different person than the little tom girl I was growing up. But getting those little reminders of where I came from is always an eye-opener and provides the specific kind of warm-and-fuzzies that makes me keep wanting to come back for more.

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This post was previously published on Medium.

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