Can Yankee Girl Overcome Ties to Hillbilly Mob?

Cue the Dueling Banjos tune…..

"In short, a Hill-Billie is a free and untrammelled white citizen of the south, who lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires off his revolver as the fancy takes him." ["New York Journal," April 23, 1900]

As the fundamental truth of the Circle of Life dictates – your past eventually catches up with you. Confession time – I was born into the Hillbilly Mob, but for the past 50 years have been in the Hillbilly Protection Program (HPP for those of you who, like me, prefer acronyms).

My mother, God rest her soul, passed away in 2010 and took, along with her southern accent that she wasn’t able to tame in 78 years, to the grave with her one-half of my familial blood ties to the Hillbilly Mob. We’re not talking Hatfields and McCoys here – no, no, this mob is much more insidious, with such hillbilly-esk names as Papa Joe, Billyparks and BudW (pronounced dub-ya, of course).

My cover was blown earlier this week when I received a call from Billyparks (that’s how he said it, like it was all one word), informing me that Papa Joe (my biological father – who I have had very little contact with over the past 50 years) had suffered a major stroke, was in hospice, and not expected to make it thru the week. This was actually sad news to me as he was a major player in bringing me into this world and as such I would not wish him a painful and traumatic transition from this life to the next, so I was sorry to hear that he was in such bad shape.

After the initial bearing of the bad news , Billyparks, who is Papa Joe’s best friend as well as his ex- brother-in-law by marriage (he’s married to Geneva who is the sister of Papa Joe’s crazy codeine-addicted ex-wife Carolyn), went on to regale me with soap-opera contending real-lifeline (as opposed to a storyline which as its name indicates is a story and thus fiction, whereas a real-lifeline is true) details of what had been happening within the Transplanted-from-West-Virginia-to-Arkansas Hillbilly Mob over the past several years. These included, first and foremost, drinkin’, guns, trailers and the accompanying trailer trash of course, along with lying, cheating, deception, trespassing, vandalism, theft, fraud, terroristic threats, drug and alcohol addiction, a stolen van and two missing urns filled with the ashes of two dearly departed fringe mob members. (Hmmmm, perhaps I could have just stopped at trailer trash as that would have pretty much covered the rest.)

The cast of characters so far in this real-lifeline includes Marvi Joe (aka Papa Joe), Billyparks, The Misses (Geneva), Crazy Codeine addicted Carolyn, Bud-dubya, Juanita (Marvi Joe’s sister and deceased wife of BudW), Markie (Crazy’s daughter), Jamie (Crazy’s son, who was adopted by Papa Joe), Laurie Ann and Joey (Papa’s other children from his second marriage – still don’t know anything about his second wife except she must be a drug addict too because according to Papa Joe and Billyparks, they are all drug addicts), and Kathy (my cousin, Juanita’s daughter) who for some reason seems completely out of place with such a plain name. Oh yeah, and then there’s Attorney Tom (don’t know his last name), Juice and Frankie (Frankie is of the female persuasion), and let’s not forget Cousin Paul from West Virginia – he was a state trooper you know, but he’s now got “the cancer.”

I’m not even sure where to begin to try to unravel this tale, but I’ll channel my inner-Maria and “start at the very beginning cuz it’s a very good place to start.”
My mother, God rest her soul, married Marvi Joe back in the 50’s. Their union resulted in two wonderfully fabulous children – me and my brother. Their marriage lasted 10 years before it was decimated by Joe’s drinking, irregular employment and unfaithfulness. Mom headed to the tundra with my brother and I, leaving Marvi to wallow in the mess he’d made. He made one half-assed attempt to win her back making the trek to the tundra to beg her forgiveness, renounce his errant ways, and reaffirm his undying love but I believe the smell of alcohol on his breath, coupled with his request for gas money to get him back home, firmly squelched any waivering thoughts she may have had on her decision to pursue divorce.

What actually occurred over the next 28 years before he searched me out in an attempt to reconnect, I cannot say for sure, but I do know he married again and sired two more children – a daughter and son – whom he ultimately was divorced from and headed back out on the road as a semi-truck driver for the Teamsters Union. (This is perhaps where the foundation for the Hillbilly Mob was formed.)

Tune in again, for the continuing saga………