There's a Jeff Foxworthy joke going on next door, live. Every redneck joke you've ever heard from him is actually happening. The man who owns owned the property next to my house and on the highway by the church is trying desperately to move. The new owner of the property, a development group, would like to start construction on the office park they have planned there and this man's (if such a word can be applied here) "yard" has to be cleared first.

I have never seen so much crap in one place in my entire life, and I have been to the Disney store! Let me try an outline for you the processes this man has undertaken in order to clear out. First, he removed his fence, so we all could observe what he was doing and so his mangy dogs and feral cats could run around our property. This was followed promptly by the posting of “No Trespassing” signs. Then he began work on the stuff by selling or junking the 4 or 5 automobiles (loosely applied term) and the 1 or 2 boats (maybe they floated) sitting on his front "lawn". Then he used a large trailer attached to his truck to extricate and remove from his property the 15 utility buildings where he kept more crap. Following that, he piled crap up in relatively organized piles. For example, all the rusted old useless bikes, approximately 30 of them I-kid-you-not, he leaned against a tree. I suspect this stage of the game is what uncovered the houses, and very likely his mother living in one of them. Yes, houses, plural. 4 of them. Not one to leave anything behind, he hired a crew of workmen with the appropriate heavy machinery and dug the nicest house up by the foundation, loaded it on a wide load trailer, and hauled it off to who knows where. Oh, and that was done in the middle of the night. A house!!

This process has been carrying on for months. It’s absurd. His crap keeps multiplying. The dirt pit left by the removed house has now been filled with more crap. Air compressors and handlers; more bicycles; refrigerators; odd pieces of machinery; industrial equipment, etc. etc. etc. I was awoken early this morning by the sound of more heavy equipment and looked out my window to discover a back hoe and a bulldozer, just moving crap around. Knocking down trees. Knocking down buildings. Moving that crap around some. It’s like a kid playing with their food. None of it ever goes away, just to a different part of the plate. I cannot wait for it to be over and done with.

In the meantime, Mr. Foxworthy if you’re reading, you might want to come to Tampa and take a look at this. It’s the stuff you dream about.

If you clean out your yard and find five bathtubs…one of which has your mother-in-law bathing in it…you might be a redneck…

-R