A Redneck by any other name...

…to borrow a phrase from the revered Shakespeare. I have a redneck name. Bob Earl. “Oh he IS a truck drivin’ redneck!” Yes, I was born into a Texan family and I was indeed destined to become a truck driver. My daddy drove trucks. My papa was a lifetime trucker. My uncle, too, was a the epitome of a redneck truck driver. Me? I’m an opera singer. Wha…? How did that happen? Well, three things happened… Let me tell you. I moved out of Texas in my prepubescent years. That was the first thing. Although, I moved to the great northern state of…Montana. Not exactly a place void of rednecks. A state filled with no more than 800,000 folks, most of whom drive tractors & raise cattle. Sounds like a cowboy state to me. But I decided at 7th grade to become a band geek. That was the second thing. Somehow I avoided shop class and enrolled in band so I could be coerced into playing a small tuba called the baritone horn. Some uppity musicians would call it a Euphonium. Much classier. So I learned music. The third thing that decided my future vocation was actually two things. As a sophomore in high school I learned that there were a plethora of chicks who sang in the choir, and only a few guys. Of course, what cowboy wanted to end up classified as a sissy singer? So I joined choir to scam on the chicks. 3 guys…30 girls. Loved the odds! I also started acting in the theater club, also populated with cute girls. So, voila! I became a singer/actor to get close to the babes. Little did I know that I was destined to become an evil baritone the rest of my life. As for the chicks? Yeah, I dated a few in high school. Avoided them in college, (what’s up with anxty college singer chicks?) and went for the budding actresses in the drama dept. And eventually married an opera singer. So I fled the life of a truck drivin’ redneck and I have embraced the life that accompanies a performer. I don’t regret it. I sometimes see a truck driving down the highway and ponder what could have been. But I blink and get sent back into reality…that a truck driver gets paid a whole heckuva lot more than a stage performer! Oh well. Gotta go learn my lines…