What Took You So Long?

By The Hillbilly Dude | Published August 9, 2025

Most hillbillies are born with common sense. Don't corner a donkey. Don't pet a sweat bee. And when you fall, put your hands out so you don't land on your face.

But not me. I didn't come standard with those morsels of knowledge.

It ain't been easy.

When I was 'bout 8 years old, I asked my Momma if I could walk to the end of the road and back. I had to ask a few times, but she finally agreed. She didn't want me to get run over, so she made sure I left the house with the most important piece of road-walkin' information: "always walk facin' traffic."

Okay. Always walk facin' traffic. Got it.

So I set-out up the road. I pass Clyde's place. So far, so good.

Here comes the first car. I'm walkin' facin' it, so I'm in good shape here.

Second car. I'm facin' that one. Perfect.

But the next car was comin' from the other direction, from behind me.

I wasn't facin' that one.

Now I tend to take lots of things literal, and I understood that I had to walk facin' any car that was drivin' by. So I had only one choice: turn around and walk the other way, back towards home. But I'm not hardly down the road at all, so I just walk real, real slow so I don't loose much ground.

But here comes another car - from behind me, the direction I set out to walk.

Thank goodness, because that means I get to turn around and continue my walk as normal.

This process - of me literally followin' her instructions, walkin' slow one way, and then fast again the other - went on a long time. At one point two cars went by at the same time.

I just stood there still for that event.

I imagine I looked smart as a box of rocks to the neighbors.

It's the first and last stroll I took as a kid.

So I've had to earn my common sense by learnin' it the hard way.