A group of Bubbas and Bubbettes in Texas are crossways of the law over a little event called “The Texas Redneck Games” about 70 miles south of Dallas (a good place to have such a slap-yo-mama shindig, if my memory of that area serves me correctly). This drunken celebration complete with midday fisticuffs, midnight fireworks and loud music of a particular variety known to crave cowboy hats, is not to be confused with the “Texas Muddy Gras” that has also been known to spring up in the same expanse of Texas humidity over the years.
This year, it seems about 6,000 people showed up at Garland Pool’s ATV park (I can only imagine what goes on at an ATV park during normal business hours) and rooted and drank and partied and generally performed as rednecks are supposed to for a weekend of fun, frivolity, beer, gasoline, blood, vomit, vehicles, danger and unruly behavior. It was called the Texas Redneck Games, after all.
Somehow, I doubt Hillary and Obama showed up for campaign donations. Sadly, I have been around these things before. Alabama and Georgia have put on unofficial versions of these things for years. But nobody brags about it.
Texas does.
One event down in the Lone Star state, called the “Mattress Chunk,” team up good old boys who quickly chug a 12-pack, crank up their pickups, get moving at a good pace, then jump in the back and try to toss a mattress. While that may seem stupid to the average person who has never actually hung out with people who like to get drunk and shoot at each other (images of the Vice President of the United States fill my head right about now), such crazed behavior is crude and embarrassing.
In a word, yes. But that’s the point, I believe, isn’t it?
I hate to admit this, but when I was in high school, my cousins and I (stone sober) would get the old 1965 Chevy pickup up to about 40 mph in a terraced field and see who could jump out and hit the ground running. If you are not drunk, I can promise you, chunking a mattress is like playing Twister with your sister compared to hitting a cow pasture at 40 mph. What goes through your mind is your rear end.
At the Texas redfest, they also had an “Ugly Butt-Crack Contest.” I’m not sure Bic lighters and methane gas were involved, but I’d say there’s a good chance of it.
The revelers gorged themselves on beer (and BBQ, no doubt) and sang and danced and fought and somehow found time to participate in semi- structured games of dubious origin. I am sure there will be naked pictures on the Internet, as there should be.
How long can you hold your breath in a mudhole? Who can grab a pair of mountain oysters (look it up) off a pole with his teeth while riding on the back of a motorcycle? Who can wake up in the bed of his F-150 with the woman he came with? Find your teeth in the grass after the pop-knot contest (also known as who can take the most punches in the face without passing out). These are questions that have to be answered – and likely were. If not, they will be next year.
When the Texas Redneck Games were over, 54 people were sharing accommodations and three squares a day, courtesy of the Henderson County Sheriff’s Department. Only 54? Wimps.
This is great PR for the Games, although organizer Oscar Still could be facing $1,000 fine and 90 days in the slammer for disturbing more than the peace in this conservative community. But that’s the point, right? If you don’t throwdown like a dog show at Michael Vick’s house at a celebration called The Texas Redneck Games (basically everything they’d arrest Oscar for is exactly what you expect to find), then what’s the use of getting all sloppy drunk, swollen-faced and muddy.
If you are honest with yourself, this is about the point in this story where you achingly admit that you have attended an office Christmas party that sounds a lot like the affair above. That’s okay. It happens. Just never tell anyone that you won the Ugly Butt-Crack Contest.
Yeah, I was at the same Christmas party.
