To: "homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org" <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [Homestead] Hillbilly
Date: Sat, 01 Oct 2005 09:26:49 -0500
Having lived approximately half my life in cities and half in rural places,
my decision to return to the hills and hollers of the Ozarks is informed.
Nearly all of my urban acquaintances smile when I refer to myself as an
intentional hillbilly. Now that I have found this, I have something to send
them:
IN 1960 the Springfield, Missouri, Court of Appeals ruled on a divorce case
involving the use of the term "hillbilly." Judge Justin Ruark, in the case
Moore v. Moore (337 S.W. 2d 781) made the following statement in his decision:
In respect to plaintiff's evidence that Minnie once referred to relatives
of the plaintiff as hillbillies: We suggest that to refer to a person as a
"hillbilly," or any other name, for that matter, might or might not be an
insult, depending upon the meaning intended to be conveyed, the manner of
utterance, and the place where the words are spoken. Webster's New
International Dictionary says that a hillbilly is "a backwoods man or
mountaineer of the southern United States;-often used contemptuously." But
without the added implication or inflection which indicates an intention to
belittle, we would say that, here in Southern Missouri, the term is often
given and accepted as a complimentary expression. An Ozark hillbilly is an
individual who has learned the real luxury of doing without the entangling
complications of things which the dependent and over-pressured city dweller
is required to consider as necessities. The hillbilly foregoes the hard
grandeur of high buildings and canyon streets in exchange for wooded hills
and verdant valleys. In place of creeping traffic he accepts the rippling
flow of the wandering stream. He does not hear the snarl of exhaust, the
raucous braying of horns, and the sharp, strident babble of many tense
voices. For him instead is the measured beat of the katydid, the lonesome,
far-off complaining of the whippoorwill, perhaps even the sound of a
falling acorn in the infinite peace of the quiet woods. The hillbilly is
often not familiar with new models, soirees, and office politics. But he
does have the time and surroundings conducive to sober reflection and
honest thought, the opportunity to get closer to his God. No, in Southern
Missouri the appellation "hillbilly" is not generally an insult or an
indignity; it is an expression of envy.